The Highland Park boy’s D1 lacrosse team pushed its record to 10-3 as the defense asserted its muscle allowing only two goals in two games this week. On Thursday the Scots hosted Jesuit High School in a North District battle that was interrupted for 1 ½ hours by a storm before the home team prevailed by 9-2. The game started out as a defensive struggle as Jesuit sagged its zone defense in front of the goal forcing the Scots to work shots from the outside perimeter. Three minutes into the contest Will Ziegler found Campbell Powers up top and he buried a laser for a 1-0 lead and then a couple of minutes later Austin Mai dished to Captain Johnny McKnight  who matched Powers effort for a 2-0 Scots lead. Mai added a solo goal in the second quarter leaving the score at 3-0 Scots heading into halftime. The Scots defense led by goalie Jordan Lee and defensemen Brett Martin, Jack Murtha, Ben Fuller and Cody Walker outdid the Jesuit zone by limiting the Rangers to just one shot on goal for the entire first half. In the third quarter the Scots figured out Jesuit’s defense and began to pull away as Travis Gallivan and Briggs Montgomery scored solo goals within the first 1:15 of the period to up the Scot’s lead to 5-0. The HP defense continued to keep Jesuit out of scoring position until Mai and Josh Francis added tallies within 30 seconds of each other to up the margin to 7-0 before the threatening skies opened up with about 3 minutes left in the third stanza. The game was delayed for 1 ½ hours of torrential downpour before resuming at 10 PM. Jesuit came out strongly scoring a man-up goal and then another all-even goal less than 20 seconds later to mount a small rally cutting the Scot’s lead to 7-2 as the third quarter ended. However the Scots reasserted themselves again as the defense smothered the Rangers the entire fourth quarter while Kevin Fritts and Ziegler offset Jesuit’s two goals and pushed the final to HP-9, Jesuit-2.

                After only one day’s rest the Scots hosted St. John’s School of Houston from the South District of the THSLL and the defense outdid its effort of Thursday as goalie Jordan Lee and company shut out the Mavericks 10-0. The Scot’s offense started slowly as St. John’s seemed to employ Jesuit’s scheme of clogging things up in front of its goal, but at 8:45 of the first quarter Josh Francis got HP on the scoreboard with an unassisted effort. After five minutes of defensive dominance by both teams Johnny McKnight shook free for another unassisted goal which was followed quickly by another tally by Kevin Fritts on a feed from Will Ziegler. The second quarter continued to be dominated by the defenses as Jordan Lee turned away what few shots that Murtha, Martin, Fuller and Walker allowed while HP managed to penetrate the Maverick’s D  for  goals by McKnight with an assist from Austin Mai and Ziegler with help from Fritts leaving the halftime score HP-5, St. John’s-0. The third quarter showcased more defense as the only score came at the 3 minute mark by Dillon Zweifel on a nifty feed from McKnight while St. John’s continued to be frustrated by the tough HP defenders. Finally in the fourth quarter the HP offense began to assert itself as Zweifel added an unassisted goal and then followed by assisting on a score by Charlie Rexford. In the waning moments Cameron Deptula and Rexford added insurance goals to close out the scoring at 10-0. This week HP finishes out its regular season schedule with a Monday night home game against Plano before travelling to St. Mark’s on Tuesday night to play a rescheduled rainout game.