The game was every bit as exciting as you would expect a meeting between Central Bucks South and Central Bucks West to be.
It was tightly contested, had momentum swings and some huge goals by both teams, but when the dust cleared, host Central Bucks West defeated the Titans, 7-5, in a key Suburban One League National Conference boys lacrosse contest on Tuesday night at CB West’s War Memorial Field.
CB South got on the board first when Colin Abbonizio found the net with 7:20 remaining in the first quarter.
The Bucks countered with three consecutive goals by Jake Ojert, Erik Ojert and Dave Ross to end the period ahead 3-1.
West scored the first two goals of the second quarter, getting one from Christian Kunkel and one from Jake Lang. With 4:31 remaining in the half, Cole Censi put it in for CB South, but the Bucks went into halftime with a 5-2 lead.
Austin Novick scored the lone goal of the third quarter for CB South to close the gap to 5-3.
The fourth quarter was where it got a little crazy.
CB South got a pair of goals from Abbonizio and Angus Ballentine to tie the game and suddenly, the Titans had the momentum with 7:21 to go.
It was short-lived.
Jake Ojert netted what proved to be the game winner with 6:34 remaining in play on West’s first shot on goal in the period. Twin brother Erik sealed the deal with a goal at 3:39.
“I was pretty pumped up,” Jake Ojert said of his big goal.
The victory was crucial for CB West, which remains undefeated in league play at 6-0, 11-2 overall. North Penn’s 13-7 win over Neshaminy gives the Knights a 6-0 record as well and sets up Friday’s meeting between the two undefeated programs at North Penn.
“This whole week is huge for us,” Erik Ojert said. “We have two great opponents and we need to win these two games. We got this one and just makes Friday so important. It’s just us and North Penn. Hopefully we can come out on top of them. We’ve never raised that banner and to have this opportunity is huge.
“CB South had a great third quarter. We were playing a lot of defense and when we got on offense we just sort of settled it so props to our defense for buckling down and my brother Jake got things going for us with a big goal in the fourth. We were able to get ahead and not look back.
“CB South is a rival school and I think it brings out the best in both programs.”
Both Ojert brothers will play at Ursinus next year. They both also played football and Erik also runs track for the Bucks.
“We got off to a little bit of a slow start so we had to buckle down and finish the game to make Friday really worth something,” Jake Ojert said. “We were thinking about that pretty much the entire game. Our coaches always say it’s a game of runs and once they went on their run, we knew it was our turn to go on our run and that’s what we did.”
The Titans (2-5, 7-8) are back in action on Thursday, traveling to Abington for a non-league game.
“The difference in the game was clearing, I think,” said Ballentine, a senior who will continue playing at Widener. “We just had trouble moving the ball up the field and they did a really good job pressuring our middies. They were able to get the ball from us a couple of times. We had a couple of key turnovers.”
Early in the game, CB West dominated faceoffs but later in the game the Titans won some big ones.
“We have a lot of trust in our guy,” Ballentine said. “Tyler (Horvath) has been winning over 80 percent in every game and we just came out a little bit flat in this game but we knew he’d turn it around.
“It’s always a big game every year and we wanted to come out and win. It’s disappointing to lose any game but these are tougher.”
Garrett Hitchens won every faceoff in the first quarter for the Bucks.
“He really just buckled down on the X and we just started getting possessions and putting the ball in the net,” Jake Ojert said.
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