The season ended for the Westside Boys Lacrosse team in a loss against Creighton Prep on Tuesday, May 10. The Warriors had fought injuries all year, with seniors Joe Beckman and Hugo Bowden facing broken wrists, Caleb Pass suffering a concussion in the midseason, and Dom Vincintini enduring a foot injury towards the season’s end.

“We had a lot of injuries. Our entire starting lineup had pretty much got hurt with concussions or broken arms, or sores,”  junior attackman Reed Elias said. 

The injuries had plagued the Warriors all season, leading to younger players like sophomores Jerry Swenson, Gino Vincintini, and Drew Longmeyer to step up when their team needed them, with Vincintini scoring two goals on the season, Longmeyer with five, and Swenson with five. 

The season came to an end against Creighton Prep in a loss, where the Warriors only needed to score six goals to stay alive in the playoff push.

“We had to score six against Prep to get in and we just weren’t able to do that. Prep’s a really, really great team,” Elias said.

The Warriors would have stayed alive in the playoff push, but due to an altercation between players and coaches in the game against Millard’s Cobra team, two starters in defenseman Andrew Neilsen and attackman Bennet Peterson facing a one game suspension, and midfield Jerry Swenson facing a two game suspension. This led to a hard fought loss against Burke. 

“We should have won against Burke, and we would have if we had more people. But 2 or 3 of our players and coaches were out with a suspension,” Elias said. 

The Warriors were also down coaches Andrew Robinson and Kyle Vincintini. Westside’s development program, led by assistant coach Andrew Mantzaris won three championships this year, with 10U, 12U and 14U teams. Those teams are mostly filled with future Westside players. 

“Practicing, going indoors. We have some U14 players from our feeder program. They have a lot of skill coming in,” Elias said. 

The Warriors will continue to do a lot of offseason work to prepare for next year.