Farmington Our Lady of Sorrows won just one of three games with rival Livonia St. Michael in boys lacrosse, but the Saints won the last and most important one. After finishing second to the Gaels in division play, Sorrows defeated St.
Michael in the seventh- and eighth-grade CYO tournament final last month, 6-4. The Saints, who have one of the oldest middle school programs in the state dating back to 1984, won their third consecutive championship. Sorrows lost to St.
Michael by a goal each time in the regular season. Four teams (the top two in each 10-team division) made the playoffs, and the Saints whipped Plymouth Our Lady of Good Counsel in their semifinal game, 11-3. "The regular season was important, because we had to be one of the top two teams," Sorrows coach Jim Hebden said.
"We got our revenge in the playoffs (against St. "The boys were well rested and ready to play them again. We knew what we did wrong in the regular-season games, and we corrected that and made some adjustments in the final.
" Hebden, who coached the Sorrows fifth- and sixth-grade team the past two seasons, took over for former coach John Van Antwerp this year. The Saints had 13 players back from their 2006 team, but only three were returning starters and most didn't have much playing time as seventh graders. "It was a slow maturation process for the boys," Hebden said.
"From a fundamental skills standpoint, we were okay, but they had to understand the strategy and how to play as a team and not a bunch of individuals. We had excellent goalkeeping, good defense and a potent offense that could score a lot of goals." Sorrows finished with an 18-4 record, scoring 160 goals while allowing only 58.
A key point in the season, according to Hebden, occurred when the Saints defeated the Warriors, a Birmingham-based club team, in overtime after losing an earlier game. "That's when the boys realized, if they played as a team, they could beat anybody," Hebden said. The team's leading scorers were Conor Schwalm, Adam Martin and Mitch Burgin, and the goalkeeper was first-time starter Christian Eckert.
"He really stepped up and was a key to our success," Hebden said of Eckert. "It was only his second year of playing organized lacrosse. It was the first time he wasn the go-to guy.
" The team's other eighth graders are Nick Bowen, David DiFiore, Nick Ebrat, Ryan Holton, Trevor Kujawski, Jared Lahiff, Jack Patton, Mitch Sanders and Dan Vigi. The seventh-grade players are Josh Abruzzo, Evan Andreski, Bobby Campbell, Andy Hebden, Jamal Jasser, Chris Koski, Danny Meyers, Andrew Mobius, Colin Seitz, Chris Walker, Nick Wolahan and Jordan Yono. Martin and Schwalm scored two goals apiece in the championship game, and Burgin and DiFiore added one each.
Bowen, Kujawski, Sanders, Patton and Walker led the defense. The other members of the coaching staff are John Martin and Devon Schwalm. Hebden added the Saints hope to make it four in a row next year.
"We have a number of boys back; we just have to work with them and get them to jell as a team," he said. This article does not have any comments associated with it Farmington Our Lady of Sorrows won just one of three games with rival Livonia St.
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