By Wendi Reardon Price
Staff Writer
wprice@mihomepaper.com
CLARKSTON — The Wolves knocked down one more opponent in the playoffs as they defeated Grand Blanc in the MHSAA Division 1 Boys Lacrosse Region 3 Semifinal, 12-5, on May 20.
“It’s wonderful,” said Clarkston Boys Varsity Lacrosse Head Coach Brian Kaminskas. “Chuck (Vierk) runs a great program. They wouldn’t be here if he didn’t. They can run, they can move. As long as we didn’t let them settle into defense we knew we had a pretty good shot.”
Three minutes into the game junior Parker Royse opened the scoring with his first goal of the night with a shot to the top of the net. Junior Lucas Diton assisted on the goal.
The Wolves added two more goals from senior Luke Darnell and Royse before Grand Blanc scored their first goal.

The Wolves responded with a goal from junior Charlie Formaro with 2:53 left in the first quarter. Twenty-one seconds later senior Denny Wandrei added another goal, putting the score, 5-1.
The Bobcats scored two goals in the second quarter from Leo Ruppel and Tommy Dowling to cut Clarkston’s lead to 5-3.
Despite the lead, the scoring was off and Kaminskas had a message for the players during halftime – stop rushing.
“We were doing a lot of things really well except we were just rushing,” he said. “We were just throwing the ball places we didn’t need to throw the ball, and we weren’t waiting for the steps to be done. Just relax and play.”
The Wolves slowed it down to go on a 7-point run, starting with a goal from Wandrie less than four minutes into the second half.
Darnell and Royse led, each with four goals. Wandrei had three goals and one assist. Formaro scored one goal. Diton had six assists. Junior Travis Bordine had two assists and sophomore Damian Miller had one assist. Sophomore Robert Haracic had eight saves in the net.
Grand Blanc’s Brady Heemsoth made 15 saves in the net.
“The goalie’s good,” Kaminskas said. “He is a four year starter for them. Early on I don’t know if our shot placement was great, but he was good. He was difficult to work around. He read some shots. Again, don’t rush your shots, relax, take the shot and score.”
The Wolves (16-2) played Hartland (15-5) in the regional final on Tuesday.
“We feel good about it,” Kaminskas said going into the game. “We are going approach it like we have done every other regional final -get to work and be ready to go.”
He added Hartland has three All-American candidates.
“We match up,” he said. “They have a couple of work horses. We match up. We have a lot of good players on our end, too.”
The Wolves lost to Hartland, 15-5, who moves on to the MHSAA Boys Lacrosse Quarterfinal 2 game on Friday at Parker Middle School in Howell, 5 p.m. The semifinal game is Tuesday, June 3 at Birmingham Seaholm, 7 p.m.

  Boys Lacrosse, Clarkston Athletics