Heading into the postseason, the Clarkston boys lacrosse team wanted to make sure that it defends its region title from a year ago.
On Thursday night at its Division 1 region opener on its home field, Clarkston sent a message that it is not taking its goal lightly, hammering Utica Ford for a 12 goals in the first quarter en route to a 25-3 victory. Clarkston moves on to face the winner of the Utica Eisenhower-Romeo matchup Friday evening.
“It’s our region to defend and that means a lot to us,” Clarkston coach Brian Kaminskas said. “Winning it last year was nice but we’re not in any hurry to give it back to any body.”
However, Clarkston was in a hurry to score goals to start the match and it succeeded well at it.
Within the first two minutes and 34 seconds of the game, Clarkston had already built a 5-0 lead. On top of that, all five goals were scored by different players as Connor Ward, Reid Kaminski, Keaton Mitchell, Conner Dziewit and Andrew Williamson each tallied a goal.
“We just try to work our systems and perfect everything so, in the big games, it is already there,” Ward said.
Clarkston continued to pour it on for the remainder of the opening quarter, as Ward and Dziewit each added another goal while Williams finished with a hat trick by the start of the second quarter.
Ward and Dziewit combined to have a hand in 11 of the first 14 goals for Clarkston on the night, as Ward finished with two goals and six assists while Dziewit had two goals and five assists on the night.
“(Ward) and I, we share the ball between the whole team,” Dziewit said. “It just comes out where me and him get the ball a lot and we finish the ball a lot.”
Williamson added an assist to his hat trick as well to lead the 15 different goal scorers for Clarkston on the night. Liam Stickle also recorded a hat trick and an assist.
“We told the guys it’s about us,” Kaminskas said. “We’re going to worry about our mistakes and not allowing them to capitalize on ours, minimize ours. We’re just preparing for the next battle next Wednesday. We didn’t know what the full outcome would be but we had an idea, so, we had a game plan for it.”
Look for continued Team of the Week coverage on the Clarkston boys lacrosse program as the week comes to a close.
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