Orchard Park Gets Rematch With Clarence | News

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y.-For 16 years straight years Orchard Park won sectional lacrosse championships. That streak ended last year when Clarence beat the Quakers 7-5 in the Class A championship game.

This year's championship game is a rematch of last year's game. The team's split two regular season meetings, the Quakers winning the first one 15-4 while the Red Devils won the second game 13-11.

There are times when the Quakers might feel they have the weight of the world on their shoulders. Alumni are constantly reminding them of the program's past successes. Orchard Park assistant coach Larry Catalano told Two On Your Side's Stu Boyar "If they would have won last year I don't think one kid on the team would have been born the last time they lost. So that's a lot of pressure to put on the kids. We've had a lot of alumni come back and tell them they gotta get back to it so that was why we didn't specifically focus on Clarence we focused on hey you have to win the games, you gotta get there and then just play the best we can through the playoffs and we should come out on top."

Last year's loss has stuck with the team. Senior Patrick Hogan told Stu "Until this day. I mean every single day we got Tundo and Kat and all the alumni, kids that graduated last year telling us that we have to win. We know we have to win we have to get it back."

The game is scheduled to start at 8 o'clock Wednesday night at All High Stadium in Buffalo. The Quakers know it won't be easy to take the Section 6 championship back from the Red Devils. Senior Peter Goltz told Stu "they're good offensively and they play really hard. They're competitors." Another senior Kole Robinson added "they have a good attack. They have some mids that run so they have a good team as well but we're ready to come out and play 'em."