Sussex Academy boys’ lax wipes out Wildcats 15-2 in season opener

Recently, boys’ lacrosse battles between Delmar and Sussex Academy have been rather close, but it seems the Seahawks are flying away from their rival following a 15-2 win March 25.

“They had a totally different team than we saw last year, and we still have a pretty young team,” sophomore Cooper Hagy said. “We came out there and we knew what we had to do; we had to dominate, and we gave it to them.”

Hagy joined Ty Jarrell as the two members of the sophomore class to register hat tricks in the convincing win, while Gideon Sammons represented the juniors, and senior Chase Ballinger put the senior class in the hat trick club. Ballinger added five assists to give him a game-high eight points.

“The offense really came together,” Hagy said. “We moved the ball; we got it around. We were all playing together, and we knew what we had to do. We ran through all of our plays.”

“Coach [Andrew] Fox emphasized long possessions, controlling the pace of the game, and I think we executed that great,” Ballinger said. “They only scored two goals. I think giving us the long possessions and scoring on every one of them – limiting the loss of the ball – was great. We dominated in that aspect of the game.”

Sussex Academy took an 8-1 lead after two quarters and nearly repeated that performance to take the 15-2 win. It is a departure from years past when sometimes those early leads would slip away.

“I think the cardiac kids are gone,” Fox said. “We have been here for a while and done it for a while, and we can really start to put it together. Delmar is a young team, and so we kind of took advantage of some of that, but at the same time, we have a lot of guys who have played a lot of time together, and it's starting to show.”

Defensively, the close defenders, long-stick middies and shortie defensive midfielders gave the Wildcats limited opportunities to test Jackson Hagy, who recorded two saves.

“Defense crushed it,” Fox said. “We came out with a game plan to be heavy on the hands. As a whole, this defensive unit is a veteran unit now, and they're used to playing together.”

The easy win is an early-season boost for the Seahawks.

“It feels great to blow them out of the water,” Ballinger said.

Sussex Academy will welcome Middletown to Georgetown for their home opener at 11 a.m., Saturday, March 28.