Chaminade goalie Jake Williams emerged from the halftime locker room, picked up three lacrosse balls from the sideline and began juggling. He did not stop until the teams lined up for the second half faceoff.
“That’s what I do for my hand-eye coordination and hand reaction speed,” Williams said. “I do it before every game and at halftime.”
Williams turned from juggler to acrobat with an incredible display of goalkeeping that powered Chaminade to a 7-4 victory over SLUH in a Class 2 boys lacrosse semifinal Tuesday at Missouri Baptist University.
Chaminade (13-3), which reached its first state title game since 2017, will face MICDS (16-2) at 7 p.m. Friday at Missouri Baptist. The Red Devils will be the fourth different championship opponent in the last four years for MICDS.
With the game tied 1-1 early in the second quarter, Williams made three sparkling saves to keep SLUH from taking the lead. He did the splits to kick away a shot with his right foot, then moments later, flung out his left foot to redirect a shot off the goal line.
“Once I got the first save under my belt, I just got on a roll and kept on going,” Williams said.
The Chaminade offense took it from there.
A Williams’ save sent the Red Devils into transition, where AJ Brown deposited a pass from Ethan Avery to give Chaminade a 2-1 lead. James Tighe ripped home two goals in 13 seconds, then delivered a headfirst dive in celebration. A man-up goal by Johnny Carlin closed out a dominant second quarter and gave Chaminade a 5-1 halftime lead.
“We had great energy, and we were never out of our element,” Chaminade coach James Spink said. “Even when we made a mistake, we owned it and moved on to the next play. Our accountability was phenomenal.”
And any defensive mistakes the Red Devils made were quickly erased by Williams, who continued to make incredible saves in the second half. In one jaw-dropper, he dropped into the splits while catching the ball above his head in his stick. Ryan Benedict scored to give Chaminade a commanding 6-1 lead after three quarters, with the only SLUH goal occurring on a two-man advantage.
“He had their offense thinking about where to (shoot) the ball, and that allowed our defense to be really aggressive and do their thing,” Spink said.
Williams, a sophomore, was slotted to be the Chaminade starting goalie after a stellar freshman campaign last season, but he suffered a hip avulsion fracture during the preseason.
“Part of my hip came off,” Williams explained.
He went through physical therapy and walked with crutches for five weeks. Meanwhile, senior Lou Fusz, the great grandson of the automotive pioneer, performed admirably in goal. After a brilliant 20-save, regular season performance, a postgame dance circle ensued. Fusz was pushed into the center and broke out an impressive series of breakdancing moves he learned as an exchange student in Germany, including the “half-windmill” and the “Russian.”
“It’s a talent we didn’t even know he had. It’s definitely something to see,” Spink said.
When Williams was ready to return, Spink eased him into action. He played one quarter against Lafayette and one half against both MICDS and John Burroughs. The state semifinal Tuesday was Williams’ first full game since last season.
“Lou was playing great. We didn’t want to rip the rug out from underneath him, so we got Jake some reps and got him going. For SLUH, we made adjustments to our transition game, and Jake was the guy for that spot. Plus, he’s an incredible ball-stopper,” Spink said.
For Williams, the hardest part of returning was not the ball-stopping, but rather, the mind-racing.
“The toughest thing was getting my mind back into it – if I let in a goal, to be able to flush it and forget about it,” Williams said.
It leaves Chaminade with a nice problem heading into to Friday’s title game against MICDS – the choice between two confident, capable goalies playing behind a team playing its best lacrosse in May.
“If we play our best, we’ll have a great shot against them,” Williams said.
And the postgame party will be a carnival.
For a photo gallery of this game, click this link: