The Eric Buckley Era in St. Louis Park boys lacrosse hit a pothole in its maiden voyage Tuesday night as Xavier Zaccagnini scored a hat trick to lead the Hopkins Royals to a 9-4 win over the host Orioles in the season opener for both teams.
Buckley, a former Spring Lake Park assistant coach, replaced Chris Bixby who stepped down after last season.
The Royals would score first :59 into the first quarter as Evan Anderson made a left side pass to Jack Slattery and he would put it past Oriole goalie Noah Houser. Hopkins would add three more unanswered goals that started on Jacob Renier's inside pass to Zaccagnini and he put the Royals up by two. The lead would increase to three on a goal from Jackson James off a pass from Adam Cochran. Zaccagnini would score his second goal of the quarter after he picked up a ground ball from Oliver Bernstein and fired it to the net. The good news for St. Louis Park fans was that there would be no shut out when Riley Swanson would score from the center slot :14 later and Hopkins would lead 4-1 which was also the halftime score since neither team sent the white ball into the net in the second quarter.
Both teams would tally twice in the third quarter. The Royals would score first as Slattery sent the ball to Renier and he would score 2:00 into the quarter. Their other third quarter goal came when Renier, positioned behind the net, made an over the cage pass to Max Johanning and it would be a 6-1 Hopkins lead. Both of the Orioles goals would come while Cochran was serving a two minute illegal body checking penalty and they would come from a junior wearing number 12, Parker Brynildson. The first would come from the center slot and the second via a centering pass from Leo Benson and the Royals would lead 6-3 at the end of the third quarter.
It looked like St. Louis Park would make a comeback in the fourth quarter as they cut the lead to two on Brynildson's hat trick goal that came on another Benson assist. But Hopkins would put the game away with three straight goals. The first came as Slattery bulldozed his way through the Oriole defense to score his second goal of the game. Zaccagnini would get the hat trick on Renier's third assist of the game. The Royals would wrap up the scoring as Troy Landschoot would shoot the ball into an empty net with 1:37 left to play.
St. Louis Park junior Flynn Spano is the son of St. Louis Park mayor Jake Spano.
The Royals open the season with a 1-0 record and return to action on Thursday, April 18 as the host the Farmington Tigers at 7 PM. The Orioles fell to 0-1 and will head to Benilde-St. Margaret's to face the Red Knights, also on the 18th at 6 PM.
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