After a season of thrills, including the first ever lacrosse championship in Baltimore City’s Division Nine, the Poly Boys team suffered its first defeat of the year. The Engineers lost in the round of 16 in the 2011 Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association 3A-2A boys state lacrosse tournament Monday.
The Engineers, top-seeded in the West section of the East division, dropped a 16-5 game against visiting number three seed Northeast of Anne Arundel County on Tuesday.
“We finally lost one and it’s a bitter pill to swallow but we showed good sportsmanship today and the better team won,” Poly head coach Raymond Harcum said after the game.
“Based on the level of competition that we had, we weren’t used to playing those guys,” Harcum said. “Not only that, I felt like we were in a funk – we just played a bad game today.”
Nicholas Edwards, one of three seniors on the team, said the Engineers got off to a bad start.
“Man, we had a rough start,” he said. “We let them have too many fast breaks, and that was a problem.”
The Eagles jumped out to an 8-0 first quarter lead, propelled by three goals off the stick of Brock Lawhorn and two from Brian Fletcher.
That margin dropped to six on second quarter scores goals by Poly’s Edwards and Malik Embree. Edwards scored unassisted after absorbing a push from behind while running up the right side of the field toward the Eagle goal. Embree’s score came off an assist from Gerod Wilson.
Yet the Eagles came back to score five unanswered goals, including three by Jake Hesse, to widen their lead to 13-2 at the half.
After Northeast was first on the board in the second half, the game was played mostly with a running clock due to the 12 goal advantage rule.
The Engineers did score three times in the final half, the first midway through the third quarter on an Embree bounce shot from 12 yards. Edwards had two unassisted goals in the fourth quarter, one at the 3:10 mark and the second with the Engineers up a man and as time was expiring. The one-minute slash that set up the man advantage was the Eagles third personal foul of the quarter and fifth overall. Poly was cited for two personal fouls during the entire game – one in each half.
Even though the Engineers won the city title, Edwards said he wished the team had been able to play two more games.
“That was OK,” he said of the city championship. “But I felt like we should have gone farther in the states. This was a bad game, and it was a bad time to have a bad game, but you learn and keep playing.”
Edwards, who will enroll at Morgan State University in the fall to study information systems, said the team – and especially himself – should have played harder in the first half, yet noted the team came out and played a hard second half.
“I was just telling everybody, we need to keep our heads up, keep playing like we did during the regular season when we were undefeated,” he said.
“I didn’t want anybody quitting and I wanted to finish the game strong. I don’t want to go out with a team just beating us in the dirt.”
Edwards will play in the state all-star game and may play some sports in the off season, yet intends to focus on academics once he reaches Morgan.
“I have a 97 average and am trying to keep it that way,” he said.
In addition to coaching Edwards in the state all-star game, Harcum will coach the city all-star game, where he will have Edwards, along with the other Poly seniors, Alfonso Dulaney and Inuibong Iniunam.
Other than those all-star games, Harcum is focused on next year.
“So from here, we just get back to keeping the guys focused with their grades,” he said, adding “and slowly doing what we did last year and start rebuilding and strengthening ourselves.”
Poly finished the season with an 11-1 record.