Dunwoody’s Zach Rosing scored six goals, including two in the final three minutes, to lead the Wildcats to an 8-6 Area 6A/7A victory over North Atlanta at Avondale Stadium on Friday night. (Photo by Mark Brock)
Three goals in a one minute span propelled the Dunwoody Wildcats to an 8-6 win over the North Atlanta Warriors in Area 2-6A/7A boys’ lacrosse action at Avondale Stadium on Friday night.
The Wildcats led for 25 minutes and 36 seconds of the match compared to North Atlanta’s 5:11 which all came in the fourth quarter after rallying from two goals down in the third quarter.
North Atlanta took its first and only lead of the game with 8:31 to play on Jack Bynum’s goal to put the Warriors ahead 6-5.
The Warriors held the lead and kept the pressure on Dunwoody as Wildcat goalie fought off several shots with crucial saves to keep the Wildcats within one score.
Dunwoody was struggling to get good shot opportunities as North Atlanta was keeping the ball in the Wildcat end of the field for most of the 5:11 span before knotting the game.
A pass from Zach Rosing from behind the net to Conner Reid to the right win set up the game-tying shot. Reid took the pass and blasted a shot past North Atlanta goalie Charles Plyler to tie the game at 6-6 with 3:20 remaining in the game.
Thirty-nine seconds later Rosing scored his fifth goal of the game with a shot right in front to give the Wildcats the lead again at 7-6 with 2:41 to play.
It only took 15 seconds to extend lead as an errant shot by the Wildcats was followed behind the net by Plyler. He retrieved the ball only to have a Dunwoody defender deflect his pass attempt. The pass fluttered to near the left front of the empty goal and Rosing scooped it into the net to make it 8-6 with 2:16 left on the clock.
Levy went on to make two saves in the final 1:14 of the game to preserve the 8-6 Area victory.
Dunwoody’s Casey Blum (10) battles for the faceoff during the Wildcats’ 8-6 win over North Atlanta. (Photo by Mark Brock)
Rosing scored the first of his six goals in the game with 10:27 to go in the first quarter for a 1-0 Dunwoody advantage that remained that way until North Atlanta’s Brayden Carroll took a pass from Kellen O’Donnell to score the tying goal with 2:36 on the clock.
Jack Pankey answered 58 seconds later with a goal to put the Wildcats up 2-1 only to have North Atlanta’s Daniel Lunsford tie the game at 2-2 with just one second left on the first period clock.
Rosing gave Dunwoody the lead again with a goal at the 5:35 mark of the second period for a 3-2 lead. North Atlanta got another late period goal tying the game on a Derrick Louis goal with just 14.7 seconds left in the first half to send the teams to the break knotted at 3-3.
Dunwoody (8-2, 1-1) took a 5-3 early in the third quarter as Zach Rosing scored his third goal of the game on an assist from Noah Fox at the 9:13 mark of the third quarter. He then extended the lead to 5-3 with a shot into the net with 7:00 minutes left in the third quarter.
Kellen O’Donnell got a break-away, one-on-one against Dunwoody goalie Will Levy for score to close the gap to 5-4 with 3:21 to go in the period. Levy rallied with two saves in a 31 second span as the clock moved to the two-minute mark.
North Atlanta’s Jack O’Kelley knotted the game at 5-5 with 1:06 left in the quarter as his shot glance off Levy’s stick and into the net to send the game into the fourth quarter tied.