Oak Hall boys lacrosse team routs Buchholz

So much for that highly anticipated boys lacrosse city showdown. Top-ranked Oak Hall handed visiting Buchholz an 11-1 defeat Friday.

Behind a mixture of scorers, the Eagles (9-0) jumped out to a 9-0 lead and never looked back. Andrew Jimenez, Rocco Falisi and Ben Moraski led the Eagles with three goals each, while Michael Moreschi added two.

“We’re happy beating our crosstown rivals, but I think we can play much better unselfish lacrosse,” Oak Hall coach Jonathan Montes said. “I have been at these games since 2012; this is probably the most dominant win over the Bobcats we have ever had.”

Yet, beating Buchholz (3-4) isn’t the primary goal, as the Eagles are focused on bigger goals.

“We want to get better and make a run at the state championship,” Montes said. “This game is another step towards that, and we appreciate the opportunity to play them.”

After taking spring break off, Oak Hall will host Tallahassee Maclay on March 31, travel to Jacksonville Bolles on April 2 and host defending state champion Ponte Vedra on April 9 to close out its regular season.

Girls lacrosse

Despite missing three key starters, Buchholz scored early, often and still had to hold off a late Oak Hall rally to knock off the host Eagles in the first game, 15-11.

Ahead 7-6 with two minutes before half, Armina Azam's two goals sparked a 7-0 Bobcats (6-2) run, that produced a 14-6 lead five minutes into the second half.

“We played tonight without our three top scorers, who were out of the game with injuries,” Buchholz coach Ian Millinoff said. “So we knew we had to step it up and have some girls who hadn’t been playing a lot step it up as well.”

Oak Hall (6-2) made it interesting with a 4-0 run of its own to cut the margin to 14-10 with less than eight minutes remaining.

“We sort of saw it coming. We were going to try to slow them down as much as we could,” Millinoff said. “We tried to kill the clock with four minutes left to stall as much as we can, but it came back to bite us because they (Oak Hall) were working really hard to get goals.”

After back-to-back away games at Creekside (March 30) and East Ridge (April 1), the Bobcats return home to host Forest (April 3) and Gainesville (April 8).