In boys' lacrosse, Germantown Academy went 2-1 during Easter week, sandwiching victories over Central Buck South (13-5) and Emmaus High School (13-6) around a road loss at Hill School (7-11).

In sunny but chilly weather conditions on Saturday morning, the host Patriots scored the first nine goals of the game against the Emmaus Green Hornets and then cruised to victory. This levelled GA's record at 3-3 heading into the Easter holiday.

"I'm happy that we won today," said seventh-year head coach Billy McKinney. "We've played some really strong competition; they tested us and we learned things that we need to do to get better."

Germantown Academy graduated more than half a dozen players from its 2022 roster, including goalie Brendan Donnelly, who is now playing at Drexel University. The new starting keeper, sophomore Jack Donovan, is highly regarded within his age group.

Coach McKinney noted, "We open the league next week with Episcopal on Tuesday and SCH on Thursday, so I hope the teams we've played so far help us match up against them. ANC (Academy of the New Church, which defeated GA 6-3) is probably one of the top five teams in the state, and we battled them and we learned some things."

Last Saturday's rival, Emmaus (a school near Allentown best known as a perennial national power in field hockey), came in with a 4-0 record. The Patriots would be led on the attack by senior Josh Gibbs, who will play for Trinity College. He rang up four goals and five assists against the Green Hornets, and the other multiple goal-scorers were senior Walker Schwartz (Cornell) with three goals and two assists, and senior Rocco Ippoldo (Franklin & Marshall), with two goals.

A little over a minute into the contest another senior, Dean Shacklett (Ohio Wesleyan) fired from the left side for the game's first goal, receiving an assist from Schwartz. Emmaus has a change to answer almost immediately, but an attacker left all alone near the GA crease dropped a pass from a teammate.

Going back on the offensive, the Pats had Ippoldo put in a short shot from the right of the cage off of a feed from Gibbs. Again the visitors tried to counter, but has a shot turned away by the keeper, Donovan. GA was slowed down for a spell by a penalty, then with about five minutes left in the opening period Gibbs got on the board himself. The quarter ended with a 3-0 lead for the hosts.

The Germantown attack sharpened up in the second period, starting with a goal in the opening minute by Gibbs working in transition with senior classmate Matt McGettigan. Gibbs assisted junior Anthony Lara on a goal just a minute later, then the score remained 5-0 through the middle of the period.

There was another burst of offense from the Patriots in the last five minutes of the half, with Gibbs setting up a goal by Schwartz and then netting two more of his own to make it 8-0 at the intermission.

The hosts upped their lead to 9-0 when Schwartz put away an outside shot just 15 seconds into the new half. Two minutes later, the Green Hornets finally broke up the shutout thanks to a score in transition by John Hughes.

Again, there was no further scoring until late in the quarter. Then freshman Paul Rambo and Ippoldo struck to make it 11-1 at the three-quarter mark, with assists going to Gibbs and Schwartz.

GA lets its guard down a bit in the final period, when a number of reserve players also filtered onto the field.

"We've been battling a little bit of complacency at times," McKinney related. "We had a strong lead at halftime and then we took our foot off the gas. Credit to them, they came out and made some adjustments and put some goals on the board."

As the clock descended from 11:26 to 2:52 remaining in the fourth round, Emmaus scored five times, receiving two goals apiece from Will Barber and Gabe Chies and then one from Caleb Mains.

Schwartz went back on the field for Germantown and as if to say "enough of this," he scored twice in a span of nine seconds to put the 13-6 final score on the board.

Donovan made six saves to help secure the victory for the Patriots, who outshot the Green Hornets 33-16 overall.

Summing up the stretch of non-league games, McKinney observed, "We have a number of young guys who are figuring things out on the fly. Defensively, we need to work on not having lapses, making sure we're not missing rotations while we catch our breath. We're pushing transition and doing things on the offensive side, and putting shots in the cage. As a group, collectively, we've got to work on putting four quarters together."