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[bsamm]

Tabb High School won the HRLax Virginia Beach Tournament Thursday night with a thrilling 6-5 win over regular season champion, Grafton High School. Grafton had an impressive season finishing with only two losses and played a great game in the final.

Grafton scored first with a 2 goal flurry early in the first period. Tabb finally got on the board in the first period with a wicked shot from the left wing by Trevor King. Later in the period, Steve Hersey blasted one past the Grafton goalie from the top of the box making it 2-2. Grafton’s fast break offense then took over as they exploded to take a 5-2 lead. Then, Tiger Ryan Hehir scored a goal, seemingly in vain, near the end of the first half leaving the score at 5-3. Despite Grafton’s tremendous effort in the first half, few of their shots reached Tabb goalie, Chris Melson. Most were blocked by the Tabb defensive middies, Billy Lucenta and Adam O’Mara, or defense men, Joey Hudson, Kyle Stitt, and Ben Murphy.


The Tigers started the second half (scoring on an extra man opportunity) by King. In addition, returning early from a knee injury, James Mitchum gave attack a much needed break in the vital last minutes of the period. Also, rookie, Josh Alexander proved himself as a first-rate substitute for a tired Tabb defense. Tabb’s defense continued to dominate their end of the field allowing few shots on Melson.


Late in the third period, Alex Brown fired a shot from the top of the box after, O’Mara came up with a loose ball near midfield and fed the attack man who beat Grafton’s goalie high tying the game at 5.


Entering the final period and tied 5-5, both teams battled for control of the midfield. Grafton’s O’Hare and Jones showed great speed and skill clearing the ball on feeds from deep in their end. Tigers, Alex Serio, Matt Cowan, and Erik Buss rivaled O’Hare and Jones in performance and as a result Grafton’s efforts to score were fruitless. In the middle of the fourth period, team leader, Steve Hersey, took matters into his own hands beating his defender and firing a shot putting Tabb up 6-5. Despite Grafton’s admirable perseverance, it was to no avail. Midfielder, Buss, cleared the ball as time expired. The crowd of 400 fans went wild.

Grafton’s outstanding face off man Drew Brown dominated the face off box all game consistently giving Grafton possession after scores. Matt Lombardo and Kyle Craig did a great job defensively for the Clippers keeping Tabb’s attack off balance with punishing checks and precision stick work.

Considering that most of these student athletes came up through the Yorktown Titan program it was a very good day for peninsula lacrosse.

[kimbee58]

Congratulations Tabb! Great job during the season and during the playoffs...