Forest holds its own in Preseason Jubilee

Jefferson Forest’s up-and-coming lacrosse club showcased its potential in Saturday’s Preseason Jubilee, an eight-team, two-day tournament hosted by E.C. Glass on its FieldTurf stadium.

The Cavaliers rallied to within 10-9 on two man-down goals in the fourth quarter before falling by a 12-10 count to the Commodores, a club team based out of Maury High in Norfolk.

Forest held a 14-11 advantage in faceoffs, including a few by John Ayers, who also netted a hat trick despite being forced to sit out the first three minutes of the fourth quarter for a stick infraction.

“With his illegal stick, we got a three-minute (penalty) and we scored two goals and I said, ‘Maybe we need to play man-down all the time,’” Forest coach Victor Clarke said. “It was a good game, evenly matched. If we played 10 times, we’d win five and they’d win five.”

On Friday night, Glass took Williamsburg, the top-ranked lacrosse club in the state, to sudden-death overtime before falling 15-14.

Sam Craighill scored the tying goal with 13 seconds left in regulation after winning a faceoff, sprinting past two defenders and beating the goalkeeper with his shot. The Hilltoppers then had two quality shot opportunities in overtime before Williamsburg netted the golden goal on transition.

“Their goalkeeper came up with two big saves,” said Glass first-year coach Bob McGrath, who, like the Hilltoppers’ new girls’ coach, Shannon Stubbs, played at Lynchburg College. “It was the best scrimmage I could have asked for, going into overtime. It was awesome.”

Charles Himel and Jimbo Moore each scored four goals for Glass and Palmer Ferguson and Kevin Angell played exceptionally on defense and midfield, respectively.

Glass had to drop Forest from its schedule this season after joining a new conference with James River, a Group AAA school out of Richmond, Western Albemarle, Monticello, Charlottesville, Salem and Rockbridge.

“It’s a great conference set-up,” McGrath said. “Hopefully, we’re one of the most feared teams in the conference. We have sophomores out there starting with juniors and seniors and it should put a scare into other coaches that some of our best players are our youngest players with so much capability of growth.”

This is Glass’ sixth season as a varsity team. The Hilltoppers open their season Thursday at home against Charlottesville.

“At the level they’re playing at right now, by the end of the season, we’re going to be rolling,” McGrath said. “We have the perfect team chemistry and dynamics to go far this year.”

The top four teams from the regular season will qualify for a district tournament on May 20 with the regular-season and tournament champions advancing to a combined state tournament for all three classifications.

JF formed its lacrosse club by taking 35 Forest residents of the Blue Ridge Lacrosse Club, based in Lynchburg, four years ago.

“We started with 35 kids and now we’re up to 180,” Clarke said, noting the players are divided between nine teams, including two girls squads. “Every year, we grow by 50 percent.”

McGrath is amazed by the rapid rise of the sport, which has been labeled the fastest-growing sport in the country.

“It’s great to see lacrosse grow around here,” he said. “Who would have thought Central Virginia would be producing teams like this?

“From when I started playing at my high school in New Jersey, lacrosse has grown 10-fold up there,” he added. “Teams around here are on the brink of getting the sport into their schools. When it gets in to the high schools, it should explode even more. I know with the budget situation right now, it may take a while.”

But he believes it would be a worthwhile investment.

“It teaches discipline and what it takes to be a man,” he said. “It molds kids into men.”

That could be said of Brendan Short, who netted a hat trick in the opening 10 minutes of JF’s game against Maury before sustaining a possible concussion on a check to the chin as he scored his third goal over the drawn-out goalkeeper.

“I got hit under the jaw by his shoulder,” said Short, who sat out Wednesday’s opening scrimmage against Salem with a knee sprain.

Short had scored the tying goal in JF’s triple-overtime loss to Glass' JV team last year.

“We stayed in the game with his goals in the first half,” said Forest goalie Phillip Milton, the team’s only player from Liberty High.

“We could have won it. With the four days of practice we’ve had, we played pretty good.”

Clarke said Forest’s defensive effort was much improved from Wednesday, when it was blown out by Salem. However, it still has a lot of work to do in picking up ground balls.

“Maury looked like they had a vacuum cleaner and we didn’t do too good today,” he said.

JF, which has one senior, one junior and 17 sophomores on its roster, will open its season at Fluvanna County next Saturday.