CREVE COEUR – Tommy Ruder had quite a week to remember.
Six days after playing a key role in helping the Spartans win the Mid-States Challenge Cup ice hockey championship, the De Smet senior weaved more magic with his lacrosse stick.
Ruder’s goal to open the fourth quarter opened the floodgates for six unanswered goals by the Spartans, three by senior Nick Glarner, as De Smet defeated John Burroughs 13-4 Thursday at De Smet.
De Smet (2-0), the state runner-up the previous three seasons, defeated the Bombers for the sixth consecutive time since 2015.
For Ruder, no playing surface was off-limits for his excellence this week. The De Smet Admissions Department held its annual Knockout basketball tournament on Wednesday, and Ruder won the championship of it, too, but not without some cajoling.
“It was the first game of the day and I won, and then they tried to tell me it didn’t count,” Ruder recalled with a laugh. “I said, ‘C’mon, that has to count.’”
Much like the Knockout game organizers, the Bombers’ attempt at preventing Ruder from glory proved unsuccessful.
John Burroughs (1-1) employed a spy to shadow Ruder in the offensive end to prevent him from receiving the ball, and for the first three quarters, the tactic kept Ruder and the Spartans’ offense contained.
“I think their gameplan was to lock me off and they did a pretty good job of it, but later in the game we moved the ball really well, and we kind of came together as a team,” said Ruder, who has signed to play lacrosse at Canisius.
De Smet led 7-4 heading into the fourth quarter when Ruder scooped up a contested ground ball to start the possession, received a return pass and whipped an underhand laser under the crossbar from 25 yards out to begin a six-goal barrage by the Spartans.
“We were a completely different team from the first half to the second half and that forced them to come off me a little bit,” Ruder said. “When I saw the open lane, I just took it.”
A stellar performance by John Burroughs goalie Ryder Scully, who made 19 saves, thwarted the offensive efficiency of De Smet throughout the first three quarters.
“He was lights out,” John Burroughs coach Zac Bilyeu said.
Scully’s excellence forced De Smet to be more methodical on offense and more selective in the shots they attempted. The result was two-to-three-minute possessions that slowly wore down the stamina of the Bombers’ defenders.
“(Scully) is really good. He made some good stops early, so we had to tell them to have some patience. Let’s not take the first shot, let’s take the best shot,” De Smet coach Joe Douglas said.
Senior Drew Whitaker scored the first De Smet goal more than nine minutes and seven Scully saves into the contest. Scully actually got a piece of Whitaker’s blast, but it had enough velocity to sneak through him and trickle over the goal line.
Senior Kyle Sindelar made it 2-0 after another lengthy possession, but 24 seconds later, Burroughs senior Gavin King raced in and scored to cut the deficit in half.
Another three-minute De Smet possession resulted in Glarner’s first goal, and it took the Bombers only 31 seconds to answer that one.
The quick strikes by John Burroughs cut the deficit to 3-2 and appeared to be the perfect response, but they did not give the Bombers defense a chance to recover, which eventually took its toll.
“We played defense the majority of the game and the fourth quarter kind of showed that,” Bilyeu said.
Junior Graham Labonte and sophomore Jack McManus put De Smet ahead by three goals midway through the second quarter, but King capitalized on a miscue by the Spartans defense and scored on an empty net to cut the deficit to 5-3 at halftime.
It was the final hiccup for a De Smet defensive unit that got stronger as the game progressed.
“We started out a little slow, we weren’t communicating well, but a little bit of a coach’s speech in the halftime huddle helped,” junior defender Blake Schlueter said. “We felt more synchronized in the second half and we flowed so well together.”
In the third quarter, Ruder saved a turnover with a diving play that led to the second goal by LaBonte, and junior Jack Littauer became the sixth Spartans player to score with a goal in the final minute.
But once again, the Bombers showed their ability to respond quickly when senior Finley Desai scored 26 seconds later to cut the deficit to 7-4 heading into the fourth quarter. It was the lone second half goal for Burroughs as De Smet unleashed a clinical final 12 minutes that featured goals from Ruder, Sindelar, Littauer and three from Glarner.
“We just started moving the ball better and working together more,” Glarner said.
Glarner, whose 18 goals last season are the most of any returning player, will be one of several Spartans asked to contribute to an offense that lost two prolific scorers to graduation – Chris Anderson and Gavin Bomstad. That duo combined to score 114 goals last season, accounting for more than half of De Smet’s total.
“The plan is that it’s going to be offense by committee,” Douglas said.
And Ruder hopes that plan will lead the Spartans to a fourth successive trip to the state championship game, this time with an outcome reminiscent of what he experienced on the hockey rink last week.
“It was the best feeling ever,” Ruder said. “I know this whole crew wants to get a state ring, and we’re going to do everything we can to get that.”