First-year Clover boys’ lacrosse wins first playoff game, beating Nation Ford

Leading Nation Ford by two goals late in the first round of the 4A boys’ lacrosse playoffs, Clover put the ball in the stick pocket of its best player.

Senior Rivington Lambert dodged and darted and kept the pill away from Nation Ford for the remaining 40 seconds, and the Blue Eagles – in their first year of varsity lacrosse – won the school’s first playoff game Tuesday night by a 10-8 final.

“I have a lot of confidence in my team so I definitely expected us to come out on top,” said Lambert. “We weren’t doing too good in the fourth quarter and my heart was in my throat. In the end, it was a big sigh of relief.”

Lambert scored a goal and dished out four assists as Clover picked apart Nation Ford’s zone defense. The host Blue Eagles led 10-4 when Lambert buried his goal with 7 minutes, 32 seconds left in the game. But the Falcons scored the last four goals of the game to set up a nervy finish.

“I tried to tell the boys to keep it constant, but that’s easier said than done,” said Clover’s coach, Matthew Lindner.

Clover beat Nation Ford 11-8 in the teams’ first meeting so both sides largely knew what to expect. The Falcons sat off the Blue Eagles in a zone defense early in Tuesday’s contest, leaving pockets of space for the hosts to exploit. Lambert, headed to Div. III lacrosse powerhouse Lynchburg, was the right man for the job.

“They know we have speed on our team,” said Lambert. “The zone was the logical thing for them, but good for us. We practice zone all the time, we know what to do against it.”

Nick Catan scored the first goal of the game to put Nation Ford up 1-0 less than three minutes in. Catan combined with his brother Vinnie to score five of the Falcons’ eight goals.

But that was the visiting side’s last lead. Clover scored the next five, taking a 5-1 lead, and momentum, into halftime. The back-breaker was a hopeful hoist from netminder Noah Lalli that hit Griffin Bailey in stride near midfield. The left-handed sophomore attackman raced away from the chasing pack and flicked home with 22 seconds left to put the Blue Eagles firmly in charge.

The hosts’ positive energy spanned halftime. After Billy Luther scored to cut the Blue Eagles’ lead to 5-2, Clover poured in the next three. Lambert fed Bailey, who finished with a hat trick, in front of the crease and he fired in, before Lambert hit Wade Summer in similar territory for another close-range finish. When Tristan Walliser burned one in from straight on to put Clover up 8-2, Nation Ford was reeling.

But after Lambert scored to put Clover ahead 10-4 in the fourth quarter, a sudden urgency jolted up Nation Ford’s collective backside. The Catan brothers alternated goals before Jon Sherman scored a pair, the last one a fancy number where he wiggled inside of the long-pole defender, shot-faked and then whipped the ball past the goalie with 1 minute, 48 seconds left for a 10-8 score.

But Clover was able to survive thanks in large part to the legs of Lambert. He held off the prying hacks of several Nation Ford defenders before drawing a late Falcons flag for an illegal check. When the horn sounded, Clover players looked excited as they spilled on to the field, but not surprised. There wasn’t a Gatorade cooler on the Blue Eagles sidelines to dump on Lindner’s head, but it’s not even certain they would have done it anyway.

“I knew this in November of 2012 when I had these kids as sophomores,” said Lindner, who coached at Presbyterian College before the school discontinued its program. “I knew that they had some talent. I’ve coached a long time; I saw the talent and it’s here.”

Nation Ford was left to rue a fruitless stretch that lasted through the end of the first half and into the second.

“They fought hard until the end,” said Falcons coach Brian Holland, whose team only loses six seniors. “In the first half we made a bunch of mistakes, it looked slopped offensively. To hold them to 10 was a number where we thought we would be successful, because we thought we would score a few more.”

It will be Clover marching on to the second round and a matchup with defending state champion Fort Mill. For Lindner’s team, it’s another chance to make the community take notice. Lacrosse is still a novelty in the area, a sport where parents sitting in the stands badly want to yell something but don’t quite have a firm handle on the rules, or know exactly what to shout.

“Lacrosse is a small community around here,” said Lindner, a New York state native like so many Southern lacrosse coaches. “So hopefully this will break it out here in Clover. I’m excited, not just for me but for all the people that came before me and started this.”

This story was originally published April 14, 2015 at 10:09 PM with the headline "First-year Clover boys’ lacrosse wins first playoff game, beating Nation Ford."