Less than four minutes remained in the first half. Torrey Pines, the No. 1-ranked boys lacrosse team in the state, the No. 4 team in the nation, which had never trailed by more than one goal against a California team, which missed its first 14 shots, was looking at a three-goal deficit against Coronado on Saturday night.

“It was scary,” said Falcons attackman Alex Pistorius.

“Maybe,” Torrey Pines head coach Jono Zissi said he was thinking, “it’s not meant to be.”

But the 15th shot found the net, the Falcons exhaled and recovered, defeating gritty Coronado 7-5 at San Marcos High to win the San Diego Section Open Division title.


For Torrey Pines, the victory was more sigh of relief than exultation. The Falcons lost the 2015 and ’16 Open finals to Poway. They fell to Coronado in the semis last year. To rivals, the Falcons were annually seen at the section’s most talented team but one that failed to deliver in May.

“I feel like all the weight has been lifted off our shoulders,” said senior midfielder Shayne Grant, who dealt with the two championship losses to Poway. “Not winning and choking? Gone.”

“I can’t put (the feeling) into words,” said Pistorius, a junior who scored two goals. “This is the best way to send those seniors off.”

Bad luck and some fantastic goalkeeping by Coronado’s Joe Walsh stymied the Falcons early. Before scoring, the Falcons clanked three shots off the pipe. And Walsh was making spectacular point-blank stops.


“If you don’t score, the guys play super tight,” said Zissi. “Once we scored, we were a different team.”

The Falcons scored with 16.6 seconds remaining in the first half to cut the deficit to 3-2. Subsequently, the game would be tied at 3-3, 4-4 and 5-5. But with 5:40 to play, Grant found the net from about seven yards out in the right slot.

“(Zissi) told us to shoot good shots, hard angles,” said Grant. “I listened and it went it.”

With about 2:30 to play, goalie Stephan Lauter survived a bam-bam-bam, three-shot Coronado barrage.


“He made some mind-boggling saves,” said Zissi.

Sophomore attackman Blake Erlbeck’s second goal with 30.9 seconds to play clinched the victory.

Torrey Pines finished 18-1. Coronado, which lost the Open title game for the second year in a row, closed 15-5.

“No one wanted us to win the whole season,” said Spencer Grant, Shayne’s twin brother. “It’s still a shock. No words can describe it. It’s a relief.”


Norcross is a freelance writer.

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