Rivarly renewed: Packed house watches Catholic and Gulf Breeze tussle in lacrosse doubleheader

Gulf Breeze and Pensacola Catholic no longer have to face one another to determine a district champion. Still, their rivalry is alive and well.

The two schools met for a lacrosse doubleheader Friday night in front of a lively crowd at Gorecki-LeBeau Stadium. Each match featured a tightly-contested first half. The second half is where the two matches differed.

At the end of the night, Pensacola Catholic established itself as the top girls team in the area while the Gulf Breeze boys got back on the winning track.

Tied 3-3 at halftime, the Lady Crusaders exploded for the first 10 goals of the second half en route to a 13-5 victory on Senior Night. On the boys side, the Dolphins scored the only two goals in the fourth quarter to emerge with a 10-8 triumph.

The Gulf Breeze boys had dropped their previous three matches, but got some much needed momentum with districts right around the corner.

"First of all, kudos to Catholic. They're having an absolutely fantastic year and they came out here ready to play. We knew that it was going to be a 48-minute barfight," Gulf Breeze boys head coach Earle McAuley said. "We challenged the kids, we challenged them in practice. ... We still haven't played out best lacrosse, but we have to keep building on this."

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Despite the visitors leading for much of the first three quarters, the two teams entered the fourth tied at 8-8. The Dolphins surged ahead early in the period thanks to a go-ahead score from junior attacker Pierce Martin. Following a turnover, senior attacker Roger Ostrander found a wide-open Martin, who finished a shot past Crusaders sophomore goalie Noah Watkins.

"It felt amazing," Martin said. "Roger made an amazing pass to me and I just put the ball in the back of the cage."

The road team added to its advantage when sophomore midfielder Austin Mickler scored with 5 minutes, 50 seconds remaining.

From there, Gulf Breeze settled the ball during its offensive possessions to burn clock and was the beneficiary of numerous stops from Cody Lee. The sophomore goalie recorded three key saves in the final 12 minutes.

"It was just about staying calm," Lee said. "I saw the ball every time basically. Got the save, made the clear. I went a bit too fast sometimes, but we still came out with the W.

"It's not just me, it's everyone on the field. Defense, middies, attack, everyone getting it done."

Catholic only led for 68 seconds. Bennett Rauscher fired a pass from behind the cage to Benton Lane, who finished from straight ahead to put the hosts up 8-7 midway through the third.

However, after the Dolphins equalized, the Crusaders were unable to score the rest of the way despite solid ball movement.

"It's a game you go into and you know it's going to be close," Catholic head coach Garrett Purcell said. "So it's about limiting little mistakes, limiting turnovers and a lot of small fundamentals that need to be done right. It usually comes down to which team turns the ball over less and which team does the fundamentals right, and that's just what happened today."

During the opener, Dolphins midfielder Erin Kokora lit up the scoreboard to send the two teams into halftime tied at 3-3. The match was a complete reversal from a Feb. 23 meeting where Catholic went up 11-2 after 25 minutes before claiming a 16-4 victory.

With the rematch much closer at the break, the message relayed by the Crusaders coaches was a simple one.

"The intensity wasn't really up. On the sideline and on the field, you could really notice that," Pensacola Catholic senior Brinley Christiansen said. "At halftime, they looked at everyone and said, 'Keep the intensity up and do it for your seniors.' ... We kind of brought ourselves together and was like, 'Let's just get this done.'"

The hosts needed just 84 seconds to surge ahead. Freshman Rebecca Bradley juked past one defender before scoring from in close to put the Crusaders up 4-3. Within three minutes, sophomore Julia Frosch put in a pair of goals and freshman Ella Adams added another. That scoring binge led to a Dolphins timeout, but the flood gates were open.

Gulf Breeze did an excellent job in the first half defending with multiple people at the point of attack. However, there's only so much an opponent can do to keep a quality program like Catholic down.

"Catholic is a good team. I know they're a good team, I know the girls. They played really well and it's going to propel them into the districts," Dolphins head coach Kenneth McIllhenny said. "I'm glad I don't have to see them again in the districts, we both get different teams to play. But they're a well-coached team, a disciplined team and they played well."

Adams completed the 10-0 spurt. Kokora stopped the run with a goal before Gulf Breeze junior Skyler Dezaldivar scored the match's final goal with 13.5 seconds left.

Christiansen and Adams each produced a match-high five goals.

"We increased our energy from zero to 100," Frosch said. "We were just a lot different team in the second half."

Here are three takeaways from Friday night's doubleheader

A freshman, though you'd never know it

Last season, Frosch was the area's breakout star as a freshman as she complemented 50 goals with an area-best 57 assists.

In 2023, that title might be reserved for Adams. In her first season with Catholic, the freshman has totaled 27 goals. Her production will be critical moving forward following the loss of junior Natalie Biggs, who suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee earlier this month.

"Ella Adams is a freshman, but you'd never know it with the level of composure that she plays with," Crusaders head coach Chloe Weinmann. "She pretty consistently can show up as a leader. Losing Natalie Biggs was pretty huge for our team because she's a huge scorer, but Ella has stepped up. And so have the other upperclassmen to help support her and really make her look good."

With Adams providing a boost, Pensacola Catholic has not rested on its laurels. Spurred by a thrilling victory over Gulf Breeze in District 1-1A title match, the team put up a program-best 16-5 record and advanced to the regional semifinals.

The Crusaders are 8-3 this year, with losses to Cherokee (Ga.), St. Augustine and Episcopal School of Jacksonville. Both St. Augustine and Episcopal School Jacksonville are currently ranked among the top 14 teams in the state.

Ranked 37th overall, Catholic is poised for another playoff run.

"We know that the potential on this team is really high," Adams said. "We've competed against some of the best teams in the whole state and we held our own against them. ... We all know we can do it and there's nothing stopping us, saying that we can't. We have that connection on this team to really go far, and I can see us going far in the playoffs."

'Everything ahead of itself'

The Catholic boys' result served as a minor blemish on what has been a tremendous 2023 campaign.

Outscoring opponents by a combined margin of 195-71, the Crusaders are 11-2 this season. Their only prior defeat came in an 13-11 loss to St. Augustine on March 10.

"We have a lot of very good athletes that have been playing for a very long time," Purcell said. "When we play as a team, we are very good. That's why we were 11-1. ... This team has everything ahead of itself."

Catholic has six players with at least 15 goals and four others with at least 10 assists. Andrew Frosch (36 G, 19 A) entered Friday with a team-best 55 points, followed by Rauscher (38 G, 15 A).

Looking ahead

Victorious in five of its first six matches, Gulf Breeze stumbled through a mid-season slump.

That might be the reason while the players burst onto the field to join Lee when the final buzzer sounded. It wasn't just a victory over a rival or a win to push the team back above .500 at 6-5, it was a result that put the squad back on track.

Now, the Dolphins can look forward to claiming their fifth-straight district title.

"We're back on it," Lee said. "We got the momentum, we're going to keep the momentum all the way through districts and regionals."

As for the Lady Dolphins, they had their three-game winning streak snapped. However, at 10-5, they'll be among the favorites to capture District 1-2A.

"The mindset for us is to continue to work hard, get our offense working together better, spreading out and moving the ball faster," McIllhenny said. "For our defense, it's trying to play more of a slide, aggressive game to be ready for districts."

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Lacrosse: No longer district foes, Gulf Breeze, Catholic renew rivalry