Fairfield Prep Dethroned As Class L State Lacrosse Champions

For a few, fleeting moments, it appeared that Brendan Rotanz would put the Fairfield Prep lacrosse team on his shoulders like he did in the semifinals against Staples.

This time, however, there would be no celebrating for the Jesuits, whose four-year reign as CIAC Class L state  champions ended Saturday in a 9-8 defeat to Cheshire at McMahon High School.

Still, Fairfield Prep (17-6) did not relinquish its title throne without a fight, nearly erasing a five-goal deficit late in the third quarter.

Rotanz scored his third of the game with 47 seconds later and Griff McGoldrick found of the back of the net 22 seconds later to complete a hat trick of his own.

Suddenly, the Jesuits were back within a goal, but time ran out on their attempt for a miracle comeback.  

"We made a good run at the end," Fairfield Prep goalkeeper Gil Long said. "The guys really got fired up, and I think we did it with too less amount of time. I feel with a few more seconds, we could have put another goal on the board."

The way things were going, there was a good chance the Jesuits would have forced overime if they could have won the final faceoff.

But Cheshire (21-2) gained the crucial possession and the Rams were able to run all but the final seconds off the clock.

"It comes to a point where you can't win every game," said Jesuits coach Chris Smalkais, whose team failed to win a  state title for the first time since 2005, the year before the CIAC adopted the current Class S, M and L format.

"The sun will shine tomorrow and we'll continue on our way. The seniors have completed their high school experience here."

Cheshire not only dethroned Fairfield Prep as state champions, but went 3-0 against the Jesuits this season. The Rams won, 9-8, at Alumni Field in the regular season, then routed the Jesuits, 13-5, in the Southern Connecticut Conference championship game.for

"(Beating Prep three times is) huge for our program, to finally prove that some teams up north should get some respect," said Cheshire goalkeeper Nathan Gaudio, who finished with 13 saves, matching the save total of his counterpart.

The Jesuits did a much better job on Todd Heritage, who was held to one goal after scoring five in the SCC title game.

But Michael Jordan and Nick Carisio picked up the slack for the Rams on Saturday by each scoring three times.

While the Rams embarrassed the Jesuits in the SCC final, they expected a much tougher contest Saturday, and they got it.

"This is a state title game," Carisio said. "We expected that team to play the best game they could play. We just came out and played it better, got the ground balls, and we were able to win it."  

The Jesuits didn't lose because of a lack of trying. They had a huge edge in shots - 39-18 - but couldn'cash in all their chances.

"We didn't finish our scoring opportunities and we alllowed a lot of soft goals on the defensive end," Smalkais said."We've  had problems throughout the course of the year communicating in terms of team defense. Unforced errors killed us." 

Still, the Rams may have started celebrating too soon after Kevin Adams scored with two minutes left in the third quarter to make it 9-4.

That's when Rotanz entered the fray. In Tuesday's 9-8 semifinal win over Staples, Rotanz scored four straight goals in the fourth quarter to help the Jesuits overcame a 7-4 deficit.

The Dartmouth-bound player tried to rally the Jesuits again, scoring with 1:42 left in the third and again with 9:12 remaining in the fourth to pull Fairfield Prep within 9-6.

But the Rams settled down and did not give up another goal until the final-minute blitz.

"The expectations were high," Long said. "Unfortunately, we didn't live up to them today. We fought hard. We made a few mistakes on defense, maybe not communicating as well as we should, and we came up a little short."

McGoldrick scored with 11:03 left in the first half to tie the contest, 3-3, but the Jesuits went scoreless for the next  17 1/2 minutes.

Jordan put the Rams back ahead with 3:55 left in the second quarter before Prep surrendered a killer goal just before the first half expired. Carisio found the back of the net with just 2.9 remaining to give the Rams a two-goal cushion at the intermission.

Kevin Brown ended the Jesuits' scoring with 5:23 left in the third quarter, but things unraveled for the Jesuits over the next 3 1/2 minutes, when the Rams erupted for four straight goals to essentially win the contest.

Cheshire's only loss to a state opponent this season with a 10-9 defeat at New Canaan May 20. 

"At the end of the day, we got beat by a high school team that had a great season," Smalkais added.

The Jesuits felt they were back in the game after Brown's goal, but the celebration was short-lived as Carisio answered just 16 seconds left.

After Jordan made it 7-4 with 3:32 left in the period, Heritage scored a crushing goal for Prep, as his seemingly harmless shot from the Rams' side of the net somehow found its way into the net.