Dutch Fork Defeats Lexington 7-2 in Boys Lacrosse

Getting Better

We're young and we are, as I told them before the game, trending up.”

Dutch Fork boys lacrosse coach Mark Goldsmith

Last year's loss to Lexington was not just the lone one suffered in Class 5A District 4 boys lacrosse for Dutch Fork.
In head coach Mark Goldsmith's view, it was one of his team's worst performance during his now 3-year tenure with the Silver Foxes.
It was a different story Thursday night in Irmo. This time, the Silver Foxes turned the tables on the District co-leaders in a 7-2 victory.
"We're young and we are, as I told them before the game, trending up," Goldsmith said. "We've been playing well lately. We had a four-game winning streak. We lost to Heathwood [Hall] in overtime 6-5. We dominated the game except for the fourth quarter.
"We talked about playing a full 48 minutes and this is the best we've played in a long time."
Goldsmith credited his team's intelligent defensive play in holding the Wildcats to a season-low in points. He especially had high praise for goalkeeper Ben Studley, who also put himself in position for a goal, calling him the "best" in the state.
After the game, Lexington head coach Mark Piepoli acknowledged his team's propensity of starting games slow came back to haunt them.
"We came out flat," he said. "That's been our issue all year is coming out flat and getting behind in the first half and that was our biggest thing we stressed. You can't do it. You can't do it against a good team like this and we didn't.
"We came out flat and because of that, they kind of jumped on us. We've had this thing as a second half team during the year where we kind of turned it on in the second half and we weren't able to do that tonight. They possessed the ball really well and we couldn't get those possessions and we tried to run a little bit too much in transition with them and we were tired and we didn't have enough depth to overcome not having the ball enough."
The loss dropped Lexington (7-4, 3-2) into second place in District 4 behind Chapin (9-3, 5-0), a 14-3 winner over River Bluff Thursday. Piepoli reminded his team that they still controls its own destiny for the District title with games remaining against Chapin and White Knoll.
"Everything we want is still in front of us," he said. "That's only one loss for us. Chapin doesn't have any, but if they have a loss to us, then we win the tiebreaker with them outright. Therefore, everything is still in front. The number-one seed, the region, district is still in front of us."
Before Wednesday's home matchup with Chapin, Lexington travels to Clover Saturday for a makeup game. Following the contest with the Eagles, the Wildcats close out the regular season with home games April 9 versus J.F. Byrnes and April 12 versus White Knoll.
Having closed out District play, Dutch Fork (7-5) has an April 7 road game at J.L. Mann and an April 14 home game with J.F. Byrnes to close out the regular season.

Baseball

Brookland-Cayce 13, Gilbert 1 (6 innings)

B.J. Etheridge and Mason Turner each drove in three runs and he struck out seven as the second-ranked Bearcats swept the season series with the defending Class 3A champion Indians.
Brookland-Cayce jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the first two innings. Aaron Sox drove in the lone run in the second inning for Gilbert, which committed five errors.
The Bearcats had to Hanahan High School Sunday to face St. Francis de Sales out of Toledo, Ohio. Gilbert returns to action Wednesday to play host to Pelion.

Softball

Gilbert 16, Brookland-Cayce 6

Emma Melinauskas homered twice and drove in six runs and Makynzi Sprague was 3-3 with three RBI and a homer to lead the Lady Indians.
Abbie Marlow also drove in three runs and Taylor Dreher scored three times for Gilbert (14-2, 6-0).
The two teams meet again Friday in Gilbert.

Girls Soccer

Gilbert 2, Fox Creek 0

Riley Barnes and Kinlee Mozley accounted for both goals and assists for the Lady Indians, who remained undefeated in Region 5-3A.
Gilbert (10-4, 6-0) travels to Brookland-Cayce Tuesday.

Boys Tennis

Batesburg-Leesville 6, Columbia 0

Hollis Ruff, Gavin Penny and Eli Janney won their respective singles matches for the Panthers.