With just over two minutes remaining in the game, Torrey Pines and Loyola were locked in a tense tie. After a Falcon timeout, Alex Pistorius received a pass from Michael Mines and flicked the ball into the right corner of the goal. The Falcons regained their lead.
“I got really good passes,” Pistorius said. “I just faked and didn’t really look and shot it, and it just went in.”
Pistorius’ goal led Torrey Pines to a 9-7 victory over Loyola — the top boys lacrosse team in Los Angeles. The Falcons last faced the Cubs in the 2016 season, defeating them 11-6.
In the final, intensity-filled moments of the game, Torrey Pines burned off crucial seconds by passing around the crease, but gave up the ball with just a minute remaining. Aggressive defense yielded possession back to the Falcons as Ryan Ramirez scooped a grounder and passed it to a teammate. Alderik van der Heyde shot the ball from the right in the last 15 seconds, sealing the win for his team.
“We’ve got a lot of veterans and guys who have been here before, [so] there was no panic,” head coach Jono Zissi said. “The guys were just calm and it showed; we got two goals at the end where it mattered.”
An early start gave Torrey Pines the necessary lead over Loyola to end with the win. First-quarter goals by Shayne Grant, Peter Hollen and Spencer Grant all had assists from van der Heyde, who then scored the first goal of the second quarter with an assist from Mines.
“We just played as a team,” Pistorius said. “It was a tough win, [but] we just gutted it out … and we found a way to win it.”
The third quarter for the Falcons began strong, with Pistorius and van der Heyde each scoring, but quickly turned in the Cubs’ favor. Loyola was suddenly able to break through their opponents’ defensive front and come back from a 7-2 score deficit and tie the game by the beginning of the fourth.
“Today wasn’t our best day,” Zissi said. “[Loyola] is a really good team, and for the kids to win on a night that they’re off just says a lot about the grit of the team. Things weren’t going our way, but the guys battled and just came out on top.”
According to Pistorius, the team has much to work on for the rest of the season, particularly offense and spacing on offense.
Torrey Pines will play St. Margaret’s (San Juan Capistrano) next Saturday at 7 p.m. at home.
