LADUE – John Burroughs senior Will Clarkson just kept moving forward.
After receiving a pass in overtime, Clarkson drove toward the goal, saw a defender sliding over, and kept powering along.
“I had the momentum so I kept going,” Clarkson said. “I thought I could bully my way in there and put it on net.”
Clarkson collided with a defender, then scored the game-winning goal two minutes into overtime as John Burroughs defeated Parkway West 11-10 in a back-and-forth thriller Tuesday to kick off the Class 2 Missouri Scholastic Lacrosse Association state playoffs.
No. 7 seed John Burroughs (9-6) will travel to No. 2 SLUH (12-5) for a Class 2 quarterfinal at 7 p.m. Friday.
The playoff battle with No. 10 seed Parkway West (12-3) mirrored the regular season meeting between the teams in which the Longhorns led by four goals before John Burroughs stormed back to win by an identical 11-10 score in overtime.
Clarkson’s overtime game-winner Tuesday was symbolic of how he and the Bombers kept plugging along, despite trailing on the scoreboard after the first, second and third quarters.
“I can’t give enough credit for the fight and the drive these guys have shown in these kind of games,” John Burroughs coach Jeff Fell said.
The Bombers first obstacle was finding a way to overcome the brilliant, 20-save performance by Parkway West junior goalie Dexter Brooks, who began the game with four sensational denials in the opening five minutes.
“Their goalie was lights out. We were confident in some of the looks and some of the shots were able to get early, but their goalie was making unbelievable saves,” Fell said.
A goal and two assists from Parkway West sophomore Leyton Usry gave the Longhorns a 3-1 lead after one quarter. Usry, a first-team All-State selection who leads the area in scoring, posed the second asteroid field for the Bombers to dodge.
Usry unleashed 18 shots in the regular season meeting April 9, but led by senior George Arnold, the Bombers were able to limit his shot attempts on Tuesday, forcing other Longhorns to generate offense.
“Earlier in the season, (Usry) had beaten me a couple times by sweeping over left and getting to his left hand. I made sure to stay top side on him and force him down the alley. He kept trying to go left, but it wasn’t there,” Arnold said.
The third boulder for the Bombers to push back up the hill occurred at the end of quarters. Parkway West scored in the final five seconds of a quarter twice, including a brilliant, individual effort by sophomore Pierce Jumper right before halftime.
Among a crowd of defenders, Jumper made a phenomenal catch of a long pass by Brooks, powered his way to the goal and scored from a seemingly impossible angle with 0.7 seconds remaining to give Parkway West a 4-2 lead at intermission.
“That absolutely jazzed us up,” Parkway West coach Pete Stirling said. “The 10-minute halftime actually hurt us because we had a lot of energy there.”
Parkway West still had its positive mojo when Usry scored 30 seconds into the third quarter and gave the Longhorns a three-goal cushion. Moments later, the Bombers took a penalty and went a man down.
But during the man-down situation, sophomore Spencer King made the play that provided the turning point. King intercepted a pass in the defensive zone, tightroped the sideline and finished his 70-yard sprint with a short-handed goal.
“At halftime, the coaches and the seniors said, ‘We have to turn this around or else this is the last game of our season,’ and I definitely took that to heart,” King said. “I felt that if someone was going to (turn it around), I would love to be the guy to do it.”
Less than two minutes later, Clarkson scored with a blistering shot just under the crossbar. Brooks had essentially taken away the bottom of the net by dropping to his knees and smothering all bounce attempts. It was the first top-shelf shot attempt by the Bombers, and it provided a blueprint to their 9-goal outburst in the second half and overtime.
“There are a lot of days I’ll stay after practice and shoot at different spots in the net. If I see a goalie dropping low a lot, I’ll try to put it high,” Clarkson said.
But the late-quarter magic for Parkway West continued to appear out of thin air. This time, junior defender Colin McCammon intercepted an errant pass with his long stick 15 yards from the Bombers’ net and scored with 5 seconds remaining in the third quarter. McCammon’s second goal of the season put the Longhorns ahead 7-6 heading to the fourth.
Once again, it was King who stemmed the tide, bouncing a shot between the legs of Brooks early in the fourth quarter to tie the game at 7.
“Our seniors are the backbone of the team and they kept the energy going. When (Parkway West) got those backbreaking goals, the seniors made sure to keep us fired up on the sidelines, and we were able to rebound and get the next goal,” King said.
King’s fourth goal of the second half came with 3:36 remaining and gave the Bombers a seemingly comfortable 10-8 advantage.
But Parkway West dialed up a comeback of its own. Senior Quinn Waddell, who had scored only seven goals during the season, saved his best for last. First, he circled the net and scored a tough goal in traffic to slice the deficit to one. Then, he corralled a long pass from Brooks and tied the game at 10 with 1:09 remaining in regulation.
“A lot of seniors with a lot of heart,” Stirling said. “They just didn’t want their season to be done.”
In overtime, Parkway West designed a play to get Usry a good look at the net, but his shot was caught by the quick reflexes of John Burroughs goalie Teddy Elzemeyer.
“(Usry) started with the ball every time there was a timeout or a man-down situation. We knew he was their guy, so I expected him to shoot,” Elzemeyer said.
Seconds later, Clarkson collided with a defender, knocked him off-balance and scored the game-winner. Officials converged briefly to discuss the play, but the goal was ultimately awarded.
“The refs let us play the whole game, so it would have been a tough call to make in overtime, but it seemed like (the contact) gained him a significant advantage to get his hands free,” Stirling said. “He’s a good shooter, so as soon as he got free, I knew we were in trouble.”
The Parkway West season was the opposite of troublesome. Two years earlier, the Longhorns won only two games. Last season, they rebounded with an 11-5 record and reached the semifinals of the Class 1 tournament.
This year, Parkway West went 12-3, including a victory over defending state champion De Smet, and earned a berth in the Class 2 field. Of the Longhorns three losses, one was an 11-9 loss at Lafayette and the other two came in overtime to John Burroughs, including the playoff heartbreaker on Tuesday.
“We’ve come a long way with this senior group. To come all the way back and get to this point was amazing. It was a lot of hard work, putting in the effort day in and day out. They are going to be tough to replace,” Stirling said.
And there is no substitute for the ability to overcome adversity, a trait that John Burroughs showed multiple times on Tuesday.
“It shows a lot about our leadership for us to be able to rally back and seal the deal in overtime,” King said.
Fell added, “We were able to make the right plays at the right time when it counted. I couldn’t be more proud of the guys.”
Photos can be found and purchased at benvessa.smugmug.com.
