Boys Lacrosse opened their season against our rivals, the Plant Panthers. Plant was a formidable opponent, finishing 14th in the state and 187th in the country last season, with a final record of 19-4. Despite this, however, the Knights still attempted to put up a fight.
“Although we’re known for being a second half team, with Plant we came out swinging,” Boys Lacrosse Captain Aidan Parks (’25) said. “We played a good game, keeping a state championship team to a four-goal lead through the first three quarters.”
Initially, the knights were going strong. Although plant jumped ahead and assumed an early lead, Robinson struck back, with Max Myer scoring a handful of goals, including a far out shot he rocketed past the plant goalie. Overall, for the first three quarters, the knights held their own. Then the team got tired.
In high school lacrosse, the boys’ team is only able to have as many players as the girls’ team, meaning that this year, the boys were capped at fourteen players, a minuscule number compared to plants 33 strong team.
“It was disappointing to find out that we were only allowed to have 14 players on the team,” Parks said. “By the fourth quarter, most of the guys were fatigued.”
By the end of the third and going into the fourth, Robinson collapsed. Our defenders were exhausted and often stranded the goalkeeper who shied away from harder shots. Additionally, plant utilized set plays and had great positioning, often capitalizing on their excellent passing and superior positions. On offense, it wasn’t much better. When the Knights did get the ball, they rarely made something happen. Although Robinson occasionally made runs into plants defense, the Knights attackers were always swarmed by defenders, and due to a lack of movement by RHS players off the ball, passing rarely happened. Although they held strong for the majority of the game, by the end of the third quarter the score was 16-3, and by the end of the game plant had scored five more.
Fortunately, this was just one game in a season of many, and not an easy game at that.
“Going into Plant, we knew it was going to be a tough game, and the result showed that,” Defenseman Will Heath (’27) said. “The team is still working and getting better as we move onto our next game.”
In a season of fifteen games, one loss is less of a fatal blow and more of a lesson, and Robinson certainly has a lot to take away from the game. But before they begin to improve, they need to convert this loss from humiliation to motivation and keep their heads up as they focus on the rest of their season.
‘We’re just not going to not look at any games that happened in the past and focus on the games ahead of us,” Attacker Bryce Woody (’27) said. “We’re trying to chase our first state championship appearance in school history.”
Although the team might have had a rocky start, there were undeniably some bright spots, that, with practice, could illuminate the full potential of the team and push them towards their state-championship aspirations.
