It was a bit of a slow start for Dos Pueblos boys lacrosse, but a 9-0 run that carried into the second half proved to be enough to pull away with a 15-7 win over El Segundo in the second round of the CIF-SS Division 2 playoffs at Scott O’Leary Stadium.
With the victory, the Chargers (19-0) are now in the quarterfinals and will host Huntington Beach on Wednesday at 5 p.m.
“All season, we’ve been a second-half team, and I think we needed a half to kind of figure out what they were doing defensively and by the end of the first half, we started to understand where our opportunities were and we took advantage of it,” Dos Pueblos Head Coach Lucas Martinez said.
“I’d like to say it was some genius coaching thing that we did at halftime, but it wasn’t. It was just the guys executing.”
One of the guys executing on the field was senior captain Jack Finneran, who scored a game-high six goals and assisted on two others.
“We’ve been here before, so we knew what we needed to do and how to prepare. We don’t let the moment get too big in our head and we just executed,” Finneran said. “We have a lot of seniors, we know how to win big games and if we play our game, we’re good.”
Late into the second quarter, El Segundo appeared to have the momentum to pull off the upset after the Eagles’ Brad Haug scored to give his team a 5-4 lead with 3:08 left before halftime.
El Segundo’s lead would not last long, however, as the Finneran brothers would take over the contest right before the half. Jack scored two goals and Daniel scored the other to give the Chargers a 7-5 halftime lead.
The Chargers would ride that momentum well into the third quarter, outscoring the Eagles 5-0 in the frame to take a commanding 12-5 lead.
Jack Finneran scored twice in the third quarter.
“We seemed to just calm down and start playing our game, and we found that we could score whenever we want, and we did that,” Jack Finneran said. “We were just feeling it. We were feeling good, and we were feeling confident.”
The Chargers added another goal in the fourth to cap off an impressive 9-0 run that broke the contest wide open. With 7:24 remaining, El Segundo got back on the board and added another at the 6:21 mark to try to get a late rally going.
However, the Chargers shut the door on any comeback with a score by senior Gus Miller at the 5:56 mark and a goal by senior Roman Christou just one minute later, securing DP’s 15- 7 victory.
Other goal scorers included: Daniel Finneran’s two goals, Miller’s two goals, Christou’s two goals, Holden Dicogno’s one goal, Chase Carlson’s one goal and Orion Prewarski’s one goal.
Dos Pueblos keeper Danny Perez finished the contest with eight saves, including four in the second period, two of which came right before the Chargers took the 6-5 lead.
“We have a lot of confidence. We know when we’re playing our game and playing our best. And in that second half, we really focused on cleaning up some of the defensive mistakes and taking advantage of our opportunities and we did that,” Martinez said.
“I’ve told the kids all season, if we play our game, there’s no one in this bracket that can beat us and I really believe that.”