HOPEWELL TWP. \u2014 John Demkovitz has typically led strong Robbinsville boys lacrosse teams in his nine years at the helm of the program, but never one with this much depth and varsity experience on offense.<\/p>\n
Liam Butler, Jack Alexander, Alex Giordano and Nolan Embley have each scored at least 50 points \u2014 something no other quartet in the Colonial Valley Conference can claim.<\/p>\n
As a result, it\u2019s been a dream season for the Ravens, who as the No. 2 seed in the CVC Tournament beat No. 3 Allentown on Tuesday in a thrilling 8-7 semifinal to advance to the title game for the first time since playing in the Mercer County Tournament final in 2016.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t graduate one offensive guy last year, so they took the bumps, the bruises last year, and they came in hungry this year,\u201d Demkovitz said. \u201cIt hasn\u2019t been the prettiest at times, but we just keep going. We keep going. Our preseason, all of our offseason hard work, it\u2019s paying off now, because I do feel like at the end there, we were able just to keep on going. And as a coach, I\u2019m proud to just see the guys extremely happy and achieve these accomplishments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Giordano and Alexander each scored two goals to lead the Ravens, who held on in the fourth quarter after Allentown came storming back with three straight goals to tie the game at 6 with 10:09 remaining.<\/p>\n
Alexander finished a feed from Ryder Horan with 6:12 left to restore order and put Robbinsville back in front. Butler tacked on an insurance goal a little more than two minutes later.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was Gior running down the field, and I just started cutting down field, trying to get open,\u201d Alexander said. \u201cRyder got it, and I just cut it straight to the goal. It was pretty simple.\u201d<\/p>\n
Simple, in the Ravens\u2019 eyes, because they have grown accustomed to dogfights with Allentown over the years. They edged the Redbirds at home on April 9, 5-4, and were poised to do it again on a bigger stage at Hopewell Valley\u2019s Ackerson Field.<\/p>\n
The reward is a date with No. 1 Notre Dame on Thursday with a chance to capture the first county\/conference title in program history.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s amazing,\u201d Giordano said. \u201cThis team especially, it really like set us on fire (losing to Allentown in last year\u2019s state tournament). We do not want to lose to this team ever again. So eating up today and getting another chance to play Notre Dame, who\u2019s considered a top team in the state right now especially, it\u2019s making us hype and at practice. We want that. We want this win.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s particularly meaningful for a player like Giordano, who would currently be a fourth-year varsity starter had he not missed his entire sophomore season due to injury.<\/p>\n
Demkovitz described the two-way midfielder and captain as a \u201cmonster\u201d who carried Robbinsville on Tuesday. Giordano scored two of Robbinsville\u2019s first three goals and also had an assist.<\/p>\n
Despite Allentown\u2019s Virginia commit, Brian McCaffery, winning 17 of the 19 faceoffs and scoring three goals, Robbinsville\u2019s depth prevailed again in the end. And for as competitive as the game was, the Ravens never trailed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just really trust each other,\u201d Giordano said. \u201cWe trust the ball in every person\u2019s stick, so we try not to be selfish. We have our leading scorers and all, but we know everyone can score on the team. We know everyone can get it done, and that\u2019s a really big part for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allentown (12-6) 1 1 3 2 \u2014 7<\/p>\n
Robbinsville (13-2) 4 1 1 2 \u2014 8<\/p>\n
Goals \u2014 McCaffery 3, Duffy 2, Harnett, Trathen (A), Giordano 2, Alexander 2, Embley, Horan, Butler, Sikorkski (R).<\/p>\n
Assists \u2014 Duffy, Laurinaitis (A), Giordano, Embley, Horan, Butler (R).<\/p>\n
Shots \u2014 18 (A), 14 (R).<\/p>\n
Saves \u2014 Schaffer 6 (A), Savoca 11 (R).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOPEWELL TWP. \u2014 John Demkovitz has typically led strong Robbinsville boys lacrosse teams in his nine years at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,305,915,726,10356],"class_list":["post-190781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-high-school-sports","tag-new-jersey","tag-sports","tag-top-stories-trt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}