Dos Pueblos boys lacrosse’s quest for a third straight Channel League title began with a 17-2 rout of crosstown rival Cate on Thursday at Scott O’Leary Stadium in Goleta.
This year’s push for a league championship will look a bit different compared to recent years, as Dos Pueblos graduated 17 seniors from its CIF-SS D2 runner-up team last season.
“We’re such a young team. We’re not necessarily young from a grade perspective; we have a lot of seniors, but we have very limited experience at the varsity level,” Dos Pueblos head coach Lucas Martinez said.
“Going from the team we had last year to the team we had this year, it’s not the same personnel, so we had to make some changes. We had to change the way we do things a little bit in some ways.”
After dropping their first two games of the season, the Chargers (2-2, 1-0 Channel League) have now won back-to-back games in two consecutive days. On Wednesday, Dos Pueblos pulled out an overtime victory over a strong Oaks Christian team.
“Early season, we went in knowing that it was going to be about finding who was going to be in what spots and what kind of systems we can run this year,” Martinez said. “In the first couple of games, we were really learning a lot of that, and I feel like yesterday was a big game for us.
“We really kind of hit our stride and started to put a few pieces together, and then today, we saw a continuation of that. We’re excited… We got a lot of young guys in today, so that’s another win.”
Koa Birchim took control of the game in the early stages to help his Chargers build up a cushion on their home turf.
The junior drove into the defense and dished it off to Noah Vernon for the first goal of the game, less than a minute in. He then scored a pair of goals of his own, before dishing off an assist to Austin Fauver for the 4-0 lead just four minutes into the game.
Birchim continued to roll when he completed his first-quarter hat trick a few minutes later, while Fauver scored once more and both Wyatt Fauver and Rohan Wansor got on the board to give the Chargers an 8-0 advantage heading into the second.
“Koa is an amazing player. He’s a great leader, leads by example every day,” Martinez said. “All the kids on the team love him. He’s just a lacrosse guy. He understands the field and he helps his teammates get to where they need to be.
“We couldn’t be happier to have him kind of running quarterback on that attack unit. He’s obviously got some big shoes to fill, but he’s got all the skill and the ability and the leadership qualities to be able to do it.”
Dos Pueblos continued to roll in the second as Dylan Wooten and Dax Pham became the sixth and seventh Chargers, respectively, to find the back of the net for the 10-0 lead midway through the quarter.
The offensive onslaught continued into the break as Wansor, Vernon, Wyatt Fauver and Maddox Schapiro all scored to balloon the Charger lead to 14-0 by halftime.
Meanwhile, the Dos Pueblos defense stifled any Cate opportunity as goalkeeper Kingston Strebel made three second-quarter saves to preserve the shutout. In fact, the Charger defense had a quiet first half altogether as Tripp Martin shined at the face-offs to give DP the majority of possessions.
With a running clock in the second half, the Rams finally got on the board when Tres Davidson scored back-to-back goals to cut the Dos Pueblos lead to 14-2 halfway through the third.
The Chargers got one of those goals back later in the quarter when Wooten dished off a pass to Adam Paredes, who buried the shot to give his squad a 14-2 lead with one quarter to go.
The fourth quarter was a relatively quiet affair, with Dos Pueblos dominating the time of possession and controlling the clock.
While Cate stood tall for the majority of the quarter with goalie Asten Krecht collecting five saves, Paredes and Ben Casselman scored for the Chargers in the final two minutes to bring the game to its final score of 17-2.
Casselman scored as the final seconds ticked off the clock, and he was the 10th different goalscorer for Dos Pueblos in the league victory.
“That’s how we’ve always played. We’re not a kind of team that relies on one guy,” Martinez said of the offensive depth. “We heavily rely on ball movement. We rely on off-ball movement.
“Theoretically, any guy that we put in any spot should be able to run that position and get some open looks. It’s great to see it come into fruition.”
The Chargers will host St. John Bosco for a non-league matchup next Thursday at 4:30 p.m.