ST. CHARLES, MO – It was the game within the game, and out in the open for everyone to see.
Statistically the best two faceoff-takers in the St. Louis area, Kirkwood senior Graden Jansen and Ladue senior Jacob Goldstein literally went toe-to-toe in the center of the field on Friday, trying to win possession of the ball for their teams.
“My whole goal was to try to be quicker than him,” Jansen said.
Jansen gained the advantage at the faceoff ‘X’ and the Pioneers rewarded his efforts with a steady stream of goals in a 20-11 victory over Ladue in the Missouri Scholastic Lacrosse Association Class 1 championship game Friday at Lindenwood University.
Kirkwood (11-9) received four-goal performances from seniors Ryan Buesching, Chris Phillips and Evan Cleveland and erased the bitter taste of an overtime defeat to Wentzville in the Class 1 title game last season.
“I showed them the video of the OT goal and told them, that the team we’re trying to beat, is ourselves from last year,” Kirkwood coach Chris Luckett said. “We know what it feels like to not win, so let’s use that to our advantage.”
The Pioneers came out hungry, and Jansen fed them the ball.
He won the first two faceoffs, and quickly thereafter, Buesching and junior Austin Tyler launched lasers into the net to give Kirkwood a 2-0 lead before Ladue earned a possession.
Goldstein also won his share of faceoffs, and after he scored a goal after his own faceoff win, Ladue cut the deficit to 3-2.
But the Rams would never find the equalizer.
Led by two goals by 6-foot-9, 230-pound Buesching, who wears the No. 69 jersey to signify his height, the Pioneers rattled off six consecutive goals in the final 4:31 of the first quarter to take a commanding 9-2 lead.
“Our last regular season game against Webster (Groves) we put up 18 (goals), and I feel like that was a real game-changer for us,” Buesching said. “Once we saw that we could score a lot of goals, this became a whole different team.”
Phillips also had a first half hat trick and showed an ability to dart past defenders as well as launch a heavy shot from long range.
“(Friday) morning I was out shooting for about an hour and a half, trying to get my shot down,” Phillips said. “It was my last game, I had to do something good.”
And the Kirkwood defense was good, too.
Junior goalie Jed Holiday made seven first half saves, including four in rapid succession right before the half. Ladue senior Charlie Rosenbloom and sophomore Max Weinstock both had their well-placed shots snagged by Holiday.
When Buesching scored his fourth goal, Kirkwood took a 14-4 lead into halftime.
“They were winning a lot of faceoffs, winning the 50-50 ground balls, and I just think that team wanted it more from the get-go,” Ladue coach Nick Striler said. “Hats off to them. They had their foot on the gas, and we were playing catch-up the whole time, trying to keep our head above water.”
Ladue’s Goldstein and Kirkwood’s Jansen came into the game each winning more than 82 percent of their faceoffs. The bevy of goals scored gave the fans in attendance a chance to see artistry at work in the center of the field on more than 30 occasions.
“(Goldstein) is such a great athlete, and he was still outclassing me at times,” said Jansen, who will play lacrosse at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. “I knew he likes to take it out front quick, so the past couple of weeks I’ve been working on my hand speed and trying to be quicker.”
Goldstein, a Gettysburg College commit, led the Ladue offensive attack with three goals.
Ladue (7-9) began the season with a 1-7 overall record but rallied to win six of its final eight games to become Class 1 runners-up.
“Our freshman goalie Marcus (Goebel) is the reason why we are here. He had a really bad, hurt thumb for a lot of the year, and he finally got healthy, started seeing the ball – teammates believing in him, defense playing better,” Striler said. “Then, today he hurt his thumb again and it got a little slippery. We had to make a (goalie) change and it was just too little, too late. But hats off to him, he did a great job this year.”
And the Class 1 championship hat can now be worn by Kirkwood, after the near-misses and heartbreak incurred in an overtime loss to Wentzville in last year’s championship game and a last-second loss to Seckman in a Class 1 semifinal in 2021.
“All the years of heartbreak before, to finally feel like we got over the hump, that’s when the (emotion) came out,” Luckett said. “To bring this (trophy) back to this community is incredible.”
Buesching added, “That (OT) loss fueled us from the first workout we had in February. To come back here and write over that memory, it means everything.”
