Seattle - The midweek showdown between, on paper what seemed to be, two evenly matched teams. Off to an early 3-1 start, first year head coach Eric Davidheiser and his transformed Lakeside Lions were fired up to host Coach Steve Lytle’s Juanita Rebels, a 3-2 team that’s only losses came to top-ranked Mercer Island and Issaquah. Losing to Bainbridge in week one, Lakeside bounced back by handling their business against Ballard, Nathan Hale and Roosevelt, so the Rebels would serve as the perfect gauge for how far the Lions have come.

Taking the vast majority of the team’s face-offs, Stone Secord dominated the battles at the x, cleanly winning a considerable amount of takes for the Rebels. Although they were securing possessions on the draws, aggressive defense and full-field pressure by Lakeside would set the tempo for a game of back-and-forth, transition-heavy lacrosse. Juanita was the first to light up the scoreboard, but the Lakeside would find a way to beat the Rebel defense to knot the score at 1-1 to close out the first frame.

During the quarter break, a routine stick check by the officials caught Lakeside playing with an illegal stick which forced the Lions to play man-down for three non-releasable minutes. Rapid ball movement on offense helped the Rebels to stick four crucial goals while playing man-up, pulling out to a 5-1 lead. Back to full strength, Lakeside would slip one past the goaltender to stop the run before Juanita would punch in one more to roll into the half with a 6-2 lead.

The Rebels continued to work the clock on offense through the thrip quarter and strong pressure on defense forced Lakeside to make quick decisions, which often turned positive for Juanita. The Lions couldn’t get on the scoreboard in the third, while their opponents struck twice. Not ready to roll over yet, Lakeside called a couple strategic timeouts in the second half for Coach Davidheiser to light a fire in his group. The Lions came out swinging in the fourth quarter, scoring four straight goals and holding the Rebels scoreless for over 12 minutes. A late string of goals would bring Lakeside within two and a few late penalties on Juanita would give the home team a shot at a comeback. Unlucky bounces for the Lions plus an excellent combination of Brogan Bartch standing tall in net and the defense successfully killing off the penalties, they burned off any extra fuel that Lions had left in the tank, securing their fourth win of the season, 8-6.

Bartch captured the win, making 13 saves on the 19 shots he faced. Cade Alonzo led the offense with 4 goals, Mason Day scored 2, Nolan Morgan and Connor Campbell each found one for the Rebels. On the opposite end, it was Charlie Powell powering the Lakeside offense, scoring 4 goals along with solo shots from Michael Taylor and Jack Koefoed. On Saturday evening, Lakeside will host Division II’s Seattle Academy at 5 pm as they look to continue building on their positive record. Juanita will face their toughest battle of the 2016 season when they take on the top team in the state, Bellevue, on the road Friday night at 8 pm. By Mark Donahue