NEV BOYS: Bonanza Wins 3rd Straight Southern Nevada Title

By Nathan Max
WSL Executive Editor

Sophomore attackman Mason Garrett registered a game-high six points on four goals and two assists to lead Bonanza to an 11-9 victory over Palo Verde in the Southern Nevada Lacrosse Association Division I championship game Friday night at Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas.

Junior middie Dakota Barrix added four points on three goals and one assist, and senior middie Brandon Edgell finished with three points on a goal and two assists to help the Bengals (15-5) win their third straight league title.

“My guys play in May,” Bonanza head coach Gary Campo said. “My leadership is senior oriented, and they know what the deal is. We played a real hard schedule this year, and it prepared us.”

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Senior middie Cory Wojciechowski added a pair of goals, and senior attackman Eric Jones had a goal and an assist to round out the scoring for Bonanza, which trailed by as many as three and led by as many as five.

Defensively, senior goalie Matt Sathrum saved 15 shots, including six in the fourth quarter.

In defeat, JoJo Milosevic had a team-high three points on a goal and two assists, senior middies Austin Taylor and Howie Rabin each scored twice, and senior middie Bud Reschke added a goal and an assist for Palo Verde (14-3). Mount St. Joseph-bound senior attackman Conner White did not score.

In the cage, junior goalie Connor DeVane saved 10 shots for the Panthers.

Early on, it looked like it would be Palo Verde’s night. The Panthers stormed out to a 4-1 lead, a game-opening run that was capped by Rabin’s goal with 3:08 remaining in the first quarter.

But Bonanza came alive after that. The Bengals responded with a 9-1 run over the next 19 minutes to completely turn the game around.

Bonanza cut the deficit to 4-2 by the end of the first quarter, and the Bengals led 7-5 at halftime. Bonanza’s momentum continued into the third quarter, and when Garrett scored with 7:36 to play, the Bengals had their biggest lead of the game at 10-5.

“We just dug in and started playing,” Campo said. “We’ve got a senior in the goal and a senior in the midfield, and our underclassmen just did the finishing. It still goes through the seniors, but the underclassmen stepped up and played.”

Palo Verde fought back to 10-7 by the end of the third quarter, then closed within a goal early in the fourth. Sophomore middie Jordan Grant made it a 10-8 game with 10:33 remaining in regulation, and after junior attackman Dakota Jamison scored with 7:58 to go, it was 10-9.

Just 14 seconds later, Garrett scored his fourth of the night to restore a two-goal advantage, and the teams then played more than seven minutes of scoreless lacrosse down to the final buzzer.

“We came out strong in the first quarter, and then Bonanza went on a run and we basically couldn’t recover from it,” Palo Verde head coach Jim Kennedy said. “We got really close in the end, but their midfield played better than ours and had more gas in the end. That was basically the deciding factor.”