New Canaan Fifth Grade Lax Sweeps Jersey Tournament

Last Sunday the 5th grade lacrosse team traveled to New Jersey to play the top four programs in the state and went undefeated, taking down Summit 9-0, Ridgewood 4-1, Mountain Lakes 3-2 and Chatham 6-2.

The NC Fifth Grade Travel Lax team. Credit: Contributed

NC 5A won all four of their games and gave up only five goals all day as Holden Busby had a tremendous day in goal making 11 saves. The relentless defense was led by Mack Seelert, Andrew Nolan and Brendan Holahan. Tristan Burt, new to the long stick middie position, did it all for the Rams with nine ground balls, two forced turnovers and a beautiful assist.

The offense got going with Ryan Connelly leading the team in points and ground balls, scoring two goals, four assists and 14 ground balls. Tommy Goetz opened the day with a hat trick vs. Summit helping the team easily coast to a 9-0 victory.

Blake Wilson came on strong just when the team needed it in its final game vs. Chatham with two big goals finishing the day with a team-high of five goals for the day, including the game-winner. Beau Johnson followed with four goals, one assist and five ground balls. Brendan Briggs finished the day with three points, two goals and an assist with a perfectly timed pass to Connelly for a diving goal. Travis Sturcke got the hardest shot award for the day shooting an absolute missile from up top hitting the upper right corner as the goalie never even moved. Cooper Jessop helped round out the offense as the Rams outscored their opponents 22-6 on the day.

Brendan Hagan, Mack Seelert and Ryan Connelly (sitting) after a long weekend of lax. Credit: Contributed

New Canaan also dominated at the all-important face-off position with Cameron Wietfeldt, Tommy Augustine and John Totaro all going well over 90% at face-off. Wietfeldt also added nine ground balls while Augustine added three goals and one assist on the day and Totaro netted two goals. Ground balls were the name of the game as Brendan Hagan came up with 10 on the day followed by Griffin Gentner scooping up seven, Ty Groff with four, Matt Salmini and Connor O’Donnell with three apiece.

This weekend the 5A’s will travel to play Fairfield on Saturday, returning home on Sunday to play DOCS at Saxe at 5:30 p.m.