After Santa Barbara High boys lacrosse defeated Dos Pueblos earlier this season, the two-time defending Channel League champion Chargers made it clear on Thursday that dethroning the champs will not be easy.
Dos Pueblos turned in a dominant defensive performance en route to a 10-6 rivalry win over the Dons on Thursday at Scott O’Leary Stadium in Goleta.
With the result, Dos Pueblos (7-4, 5-1 CL) now holds a ½-game lead over Santa Barbara (10-1, 4-1 CL) atop the Channel League standings with two weeks left in the regular season.
“The way we looked at it was this is our league right now, and we weren’t willing to give it up without a fight,” Dos Pueblos head coach Lucas Martinez said. “After that last loss, we knew that we made a lot of mistakes, and we knew that [SB] has a lot of talent and is really well coached, and it was going to take a really strong game from our team to be able to come back.
“I’m just really proud of the way the kids came out. We made a lot of mistakes again, but we fought so hard in the middle of the field. We were scrapping for every ground ball. The guys just came ready to play. It was fun to watch.”
After the majority of the first quarter went scoreless, the Chargers struck first at the 4:05 mark when Koa Birchim received a pass from behind the net and bulldozed his way through a trio of SB defenders on his way to the goal and the 1-0 lead.
Dean Wendel then won the ensuing face-off and quickly moved the ball to Wyatt Fauver, who dished it to a wide-open Noah Vernon for the goal and a 2-0 lead that held into the second.
Santa Barbara then shook off the slow start almost immediately, as Flynn Chenoweth came from behind the net and found the back of the net just 45 seconds into the second to cut the deficit to 2-1.
However, the Chargers quickly regained control with back-to-back impressive solo-effort goals from Austin Fauver and Julian Lorkovic to bring the lead to 4-1 with 8:12 left in the half.
Both defenses then stood tall for the majority of the quarter, but Dos Pueblos got right back in the driver’s seat at the 1:45 mark with two goals in 10 seconds.
Birchim scored off an assist from Dylan Wooten before Wendel won the next face-off, charged through the defense and scored on a bounce shot to make it 6-1 heading into halftime.
“We’re not built on any one player. We move the ball around, we find whoever has the best shot, and they’re the one that takes it, and the guys really did that tonight,” Martinez said. “We were finding our spots. We were taking really smart shots.
“I think also in the first game, we were a little hesitant to shoot sometimes, and we told them tonight, ‘Shooters gotta shoot,’ and the guys were pulling the trigger tonight more, and that was good to see.”
The Dons came out of the break on fire, scoring the first two goals of the half in three minutes. Chenoweth earned the assists for both goals, connecting with Parker Mercado and Adam Stern to trim the deficit to 6-3.
Santa Barbara continued its hot streak two minutes later when Lincoln Lynn fired in a shot from the outside to make it 6-4 with 6:01 on the clock.
The Chargers then reclaimed the momentum by scoring goals within 20 seconds of each other, as Wendel found Luke Patterson for a goal and Birchim dished it off to Wyatt Fauver to bring the lead back up to 8-4 with 4:16 left in the third.
“We dug ourselves a pretty deep hole in the first half,” Santa Barbara High head coach John Keogh said. “We came out super hot in the 2nd half, but then, of course, they would sort of counterpunch and they would stop our momentum. Lacrosse is a game of runs, and they had more runs than we did.”
Neither side converted down the stretch of the third, preserving Dos Pueblos’ four-goal lead into the fourth.
The beginning of the fourth featured little action, as the Charger defense continued to stand tall while they slowed down the pace of play on the offensive end.
Kingston Strebel had a stellar game in the net for Dos Pueblos, collecting a whopping 19 saves. Wendel also had a strong night on the defensive end and in the midfield for the Chargers.
“Absolute stand-up performance by Kingston. He was lightning, and he was making big saves at the most critical moments,” Martinez said. “Dean Wendell was everywhere. He was facing off, he was stripping the ball, he was getting back and playing our quarterback on our defense… He was on fire.
“This team is built on defense. Our defense is our strongest asset. The job they’ve been doing all season is incredible. We haven’t allowed more than 10 goals (in a game) in two years, and that’s really something in lacrosse.”
The Fauver brother connection ended the scoring drought and extended the DP lead to 9-4 as Wyatt passed it off to his brother Austin, who buried the shot with 5:42 to go.
The Dons made things interesting as Chenoweth scored two consecutive goals in the span of 30 seconds to inch closer at 9-6 with 3:44 remaining, but that was the end of their scoring and Wooten scored the final goal of the night to bring the game to its final score of 10-6.
Dos Pueblos will be on the road against Thacher next Tuesday, while Santa Barbara will play host to Cate on Tuesday.