Boys Lacrosse: East Brunswick advances to GMC Tournament semifinals

EAST BRUNSWICK - Tuesday's victory in the Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament quarterfinals was a long time coming for the East Brunswick High School boys lacrosse team.

The fourth-seeded Bears defeated No. 5 South Brunswick 11-10 in overtime to advance to the semifinals for the first time in recent memory. According to coach Rory Murray, it was his first GMC Tournament win in his five years at the helm.

"I haven't been here for it, I couldn't tell you, it's my first GMC win, it's really nice to get that," Murray said. "The outcome of the game is the outcome of the game, we've been working hard for the last five years to change the mentality of the program moving forward, and it looks like we're finally starting to get there."

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East Brunswick rallied to win in overtime after allowing South Brunswick (6-9) to climb back into the game and take a 10-8 lead after leading 7-2 at halftime. With 1:28 to play, Tommy Bahmer scored to tie it up 10-10, and with 2:55 left in overtime, Timmy Smith scored his third of the day to send the Bears to the GMC Tournament semifinals, where they will face top-seeded St. Joseph on Thursday.

"I split dodged, rolled, saw my opportunity, I had three seconds and I just let it rip opposite side of the net. It felt amazing, it was a great feeling," Smith said of scoring the game-winner. "It was intense, it was very close the whole game. We played pretty bad in the second half but we brought it back, we knew we weren't going to lose, we couldn't let up."

The Bears jumped out to a strong 7-2 lead at halftime after South Brunswick started the game 2-0. The Vikings caught fire in the second half, scoring seven unanswered goals, including two from Austin Miller, to tie the game 7-7 after three quarters.

"We just thought they were going to roll over," Smith said of South Brunswick's comeback. "We didn't stick to our fundamentals, we didn't stick to the defense and offense coach told us to do and we just collapsed as one goal went in after another. and luckily we brought it back up."

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South Brunswick kept it going, as Jon Lanzalotto and Tyler White scored to open the fourth quarter and give the Vikings their first lead, 9-7, since 6:31 of the first quarter. Sean Kelliner scored on an assist from Smith to pull East Brunswick within one, 9-8, with 6:30 left in the game but Austin Haren scored his third of the afternoon to give the Vikings a 10-8 lead with 5:05 to play.

Bahmer scored back-to-back goals in the final 2:19 to tie the game 10-10, and it took overtime and Smith to keep the Bears alive in the tournament.

"In the first half I think we came out with a lot of fire, we were ready to play, we didn't want to lose the game in the first half," Bahmer said. "Then we saw we had this big lead, we probably thought they were going to roll over and it was not the way we wanted to come out in the second half, but we picked it up in the fourth quarter and ended coming out with what we wanted to do."

Christian Perrine won 17-of-25 faceoffs, while Adrian Rivera won eight for South Brunswick.

East Brunswick has been streaking of late, starting the season 2-6 before winning its last eight games to improve to 10-6. According to Murray, the team is young, having graduated 13 players last year, and he's currently starting six sophomores and freshmen. The Bears have improved dramatically from last season, when they finished in the basement of the GMC at 5-13.

"Mentally it shows how much we've grown," Murray said of the win. "I think the first time we played South Brunswick we went down by a bunch going into halftime, we came back and won that game too, so we have the competitiveness, we have the drive we need in order to get to the next level, and now it's just taking the next step to get up there with the upper teams in our conference and hopefully the upper teams in the state."

Staff Writer Lauren Knego: lknego@gannettnj.com; on Twitter: @laurenknego

East Brunswick 11, South Brunswick 10 (OT)

GOALS: (EB) Bahmer 4, Smith 3, Kelliher 2, Thomas, Sanseverino; (SB) Haren 3, Miller 3, White 2, Slover, Lanzalotto; ASSISTS: (EB) Thomas, Smith; (SB) Miller 4, Ferlita, Lanzalotto, Slover, Weiss; SAVES: (EB) Elshalakany 11; (SB) Wu 16.