OTTAWA HILLS — After starting the season 2-1, Bowling Green boys lacrosse ran into a brick wall Thursday against a skilled Ottawa Hills team that won easily, 20-1, at Neidermeier Stadium.
Ottawa Hills reached the regional semifinals last year and is looking to become the first team from the Northwest District to reach the state final four, but that doesn’t mean that the BG coaches and players did not learn something from the loss.
“I think, actually, we really battled here,” BG associate head coach Connor Rogowski said. “We batttled hard. Our ‘D’ played really well, we had a lot of turnovers, but we just couldn’t capitalize on any of them.”
BG senior attack Reece Rath scored with 4:27 remaining in the opening quarter, but it came after the Green Bears had already put up three goals, and it was the Bobcats’ (2-2) only score of the night.
The Green Bears outshot the Bobcats, 39-13, and that included a 33-3 disparity in shots on goal. When Ottawa Hills took a shot, even if it was from over 30 feet out, you could nearly guarantee it was on net, plus they demonstrated pinpoint accuracy in their passing.
In addition, Ottawa Hills won 17 of 23 draws with one tie, giving the Green Bears’ offense possession nearly 75% of the game.
However, the BG coaches saw a lot of good things as they try to build the kind of program that Ottawa Hills has built.
“I thought defensive-wise we played outstanding from the beginning. With a couple guys missing (spring break), for the people who stepped in, we played really well. We took a lot of positives out of the game,” Rogowski said.
“In the fourth quarter, we put in a lot of guys who got a lot of reps — a lot of junior varsity players got reps as well, so we gained a lot from this, take the score away from it. I think we did a lot of good things tonight that we are going to be able to build on, for sure.”
For the Green Bears, senior attack Sam Petro had five goals and one assist, junior attack Christian Craver had three goals and two assists, and senior midfielder Reece Hill had three goals and one assist.
Sophomore attack Ty Anderson had two goals and four assists and freshman attack Graham Hill had two goals and one assist. Six other Green Bears got into the scoring column.
The Green Bears opened the season losing to a program that has reached the state final four twice, Cuyahoga Falls Walsh Jesuit (9-8), so this was Ottawa Hills’ first win this season.
Ottawa Hills coach Tim Best says his team is dealing with inexperience, too, but he was pleased to see them gel in the win over BG.
“We’ve got some new players ar some new positions and it is going to take a few games to meld a little bit more,” Best said.
“Hopefully we can keep improving — that is our goal, to just keep improving this year because we’ve got some young players, we’re starting some freshmen, a new time goalie, a new time attack, so we’re just going to need to try and keep building.”
The two teams will play each other again on May 10 at Bobcat Stadium when BG does not have players missing.
“Bowling Green came up here and they were short a few players because of spring break, so we scheduled another game with them at the end of the year so hopefully they will have a full complement of players,” Best said.
