ST. CHARLES • Rockhurst and its blitzkrieg offense stormed Lindenwood University on Saturday and methodically snatched its second straight Missouri Scholastic Lacrosse Association Division I state championship.
The Hawklets rang up five goals in the second quarter en route to a 10-5 win over MICDS.
Junior Sam Krause scored five goals as Rockhurst finished the season 17-0.
"We wanted to win really bad," Krause said. "We were a lot more pumped up."
MICDS, the tournaments No. 4 seed, ends up 13-3.
"They kept finding their attack on the backside of the crease," MICDS senior Tucker Sanders-Lyle said. "We had opportunities, we just weren't finishing. We made mistakes that we don't usually make."
Rockhurst nearly bowed out of the tournament in Thursday's semifinals when it came back from a six-goal deficit to beat SLUH in overtime.
In a battle of the state's top offense in Rockhurst against the state's top defense in MICDS, the Hawklets' deep talent pool weighed on the Rams with a five-goal barrage in the final 4:25 of the second quarter.
"We were down a starting attackman and a starting midfielder," Rockhurst coach Jay Coleman said. "We were not sure what was going to happen today then everything started clicking."
MICDS was the aggressor early as junior Foster Bundy came from behind the cage and scored the game's first goal with 8:40 to play in the first. A patient William Morehead put the Rams up 2-0 about two minutes later.
Then Krause started to fire up. By the end of the first quarter, he had scored a hat trick and the game was knotted at 3-3.
Late in the second quarter, Jeff Crowe scored two nearly identical goals and Krause's fourth goal of the game made it 6-3. Eight seconds later, Charlie Ferber scored off an assist from Krause and the Hawklets were up 7-3 with 1:59 left.
With a man down, Daniel Connor made it 8-3 Rockhurst before halftime.
Krause's fifth goal was Rockhurst's seventh unanswered and made it 9-3.
The Rams' offense went nearly two full quarters without scoring a goal when Tucker Sanders-Lyle ended the drought with his goal with 2:54 left in the third made it 10-4. Sanders-Lyle added another goal with 9:32 left in the fourth quarter.
Rockhurst has also won state titles in 2003, 2006 and 2009.
