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Daily Planet Correspondent 

Berkeley High’s boys lacrosse team entered the fourth quarter of Tuesday afternoon’s game against Acalanes with a close 3-2 lead. Unfortunately, the Bears clawed their way from behind – getting a 6-3 triumph over the Yellowjackets at BHS football field. 

“What do you want?” Acalanes’ coach Mark Reardon shouted to his boys in a pep talk before the fourth quarter. “That is what you must answer in the next 15 minutes.” 

Bears attacker Magnus Duborg responded to that challenge by rocketing in three goals – one of them with less than 30 seconds on the clock. Matt Bissell chimed in with one more to end the quarter. 

“We are a lot better than these guys, and we wanted to show them,” Duborg boasted. “It just took us a few quarters to warm up.” 

Some of Berkeley’s problems can be attributed to a lot of foul calls by the referees, which resulted in a pulled defender every quarter. This obstacle sapped the endurance of the defenders on the field, who were forced to fill in the gaps for the missing teammates. 

“The defense had zero energy (in the fourth quarter),” BHS defender Chris Mays explained. “I just ran out of strength. I feel like those fouls were unfair.” 

BHS offense wasn’t able to pick it up in the end either, rarely moving onto the Bears’ territory. The ’Jacket attackers were unable to cope with the Bears’ new fourth-quarter defensive strategy. In the beginning of the match, Acalanes focused on a zone defense, but in the fourth shifted to a man-to-man coverage. 

“We kind of collapsed out there,” attacker Nick Schooler said after the game. “Our stick or cutter (plays) didn’t work.” 

The loss marked another notch onto the Yellowjackets’ five-game losing streak, this time to a team they beat last month. BHS coach Chris Sparhawk was disappointed with the loss because Berkeley seems to suffer from the same problems every game – a lack of mental recall from the playbook. In his mind, this is due to a plethora of young players on the team. 

“Our guys just stand out there like trees on the offense,” Sparhawk commented. “They just don’t seem to mentally get it.” 

The game did hold some high moments for Berkeley, in the first and second quarters, when it was able to keep the Bears at bay. Schooler managed to ratchet in a goal during each of these quarters, and was followed up by Ashley Day with a score in the second. The first half ended with Berkeley up, 3-1. 

“It always happens this way,” BHS attacker Joe Rabinowitz explained. “We’re psyched before and during the first part of the game, but halfway through, things go downhill.” 

The third quarter saw the game begin to turnaround for the Bears. Acalanes’ Brian Etheridge managed to up his team’s score by two points, knocking one of his goals in with just nine seconds left in the quarter. 

“We slacked off after getting a good lead,” defender Eli Block said.  

Coach Sparhawk doesn’t feel his boys became cocky, but just need a lot more work during practice. Unfortunately, he’s less than sure the boys will be able to improve to the necessary level of success by the season’s end. 

“I just don’t think I’m going to be able to do it right now,” Sparhawk conceded.