West Leads Seahawks Past Mallards

BERLIN - It may not have been easy, but the Stephen Decatur boys' varsity lacrosse team finally got the best of their cross-town rivals, Worcester Prep, getting out to an early lead and never looking back.

Decatur led the entire way and ended up winning 13-8 behind a huge performance by Logan West, who dominated the face-off battle and scored five goals.

Decatur jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead in the first quarter behind a goal by junior Ben Kelleher and back-to-back scores by senior co-captain Nick Hogan.

Only 18 seconds into the second quarter, Worcester finally got on the board with a goal by Justin Butler, assisted by Christian Payne. That score was followed up by a Payne's first goal of the game with 8:40 remaining in the quarter.

West got the first of his five goals in the game with 3:22 remaining with a high hard shot that got by Worcester goalie Christian Coates to give Decatur the 4-2 lead. Hogan scored again one minute later off a feed from Kelleher to increase Decatur's lead to 5-2.

Both teams battled over possession to start the second half, but the scoring drought ended with 8:51 left in the third quarter when Will Regan converted a pretty pass from Greg Butler to cut into Decatur's lead.

Worcester's momentum was short-lived however, as West scored on an isolation play with 5:51 left in the third quarter to make it 6-3. Consecutive goals by Decatur's Paul Kramer increased the lead to 8-3.

Worcester scored the next four goals to cut the lead to 8-7 before Kramer notched another goal to give Decatur some more breathing room. Two quick goals by Decatur later, and the score was 11-7 with five minutes remaining, and Worcester could only manage one more goal, while Decatur controlled possession and notched two more tallies.