File:Lacrosse 2018, Boys Lacrosse, Layne Harich from the Frederick News Post, April 13, 2018.jpg

Brunswick High School Boys Lacrosse,

Harich is hard to stop Roaders junior scores 10 goals in win over Titans

   By John Cannon jcannon@newspost.com 

BRUNSWICK — Layne Harich had scored two quick goals a little over a minute earlier, giving Brunswick a little breathing room against comeback-minded Tuscarora.

He wasn’t done yet, though. Cutting left-to-right after catching a pass near the net, Harich tried a behind-the-back shot from point-blank range.

“You’ve just got to be creative with the game,” Harich said. “You can’t just think about it. If you think about it too much, it’ll be really bad. So, it just came to me, and I said, ‘I’m going to do it.’”

His shot went in, providing the Railroaders with yet another timely spark.

Harich had 10 goals, including Brunswick’s final four, and three assists to help the host Railroaders hold on for a 15-11 win over the Titans.

As first-year Brunswick coach John Kostolansky pointed out, Harich isn’t a one-dimensional player. Aside from scoring, the junior gets ground balls, wins faceoffs and creates scoring opportunities for teammates.

“Layne does so many good things for us,” Kostolansky said. “He scores a lot of goals, but he doesn’t get a lot of credit for as much as he creates. He had some nice assists as well. He draws a lot of defense to him, and then he dumps the ball and tries to get assists.”

All three of his assists on Thursday set up fellow junior Jacob Cadle, who made a hefty contribution to the win by finishing with four goals and three assists.

But when the Railroaders needed goals to fend off Tuscarora’s comeback attempt in the fourth quarter, Harich delivered.

With Brunswick clinging to an 11-9 lead with 7:28 left, Harich scored the first of three unanswered goals, with the final one coming on his behind-the-back shot at the 6:23 mark.

Harich relishes helping his team in such situations.

“I want to have the ball in crunch time,” he said. “I live for that.”

And he didn’t let sickness slow him down on Thursday. He said he recently tested positive for strep throat.

“I’ve just got to do whatever it takes to get on this field and help my team win,” said Harich, who figured the Railroaders would have a tussle on Thursday. “We knew coming into this game, it would be a tough opponent. We were just tired of losing, we just wanted to come in with a new attitude.”

Harich scored off the faceoff just six seconds into the game — a feat he accomplished again in the fourth quarter — and the Railroaders led 6-0 at the end of the first quarter.

But Tuscarora cut that lead to three midway through the second quarter, foreshadowing the Titans’ late-game comeback bid.

After trailing by six goals again early in the third quarter, Tuscarora stormed back and cut Brunswick’s lead to 11-9 when Noah Grubb scored with 11:33 left in the fourth quarter.

Still, Brunswick held on to improve to 3-3. Kostolansky said the Railroaders had to impose their will.

“That’s the message I tried to get to them,” said the coach, who hails from upstate New York. “They’ve got to go out there and play with confidence, they’ve got to play with attitude and they’ve got to play with passion. And they did.”

Michael Heister led Tuscarora with four goals and one assist. Dylan Wilson had three goals, Micheal Reges had two goals and Grubb had one goal and one assist. Goalie Liam Collins had 16 saves.

Brunswick goalie Jacob Robertson had eight saves