The Brother Rice lacrosse program has won 13 of the last 15 state championships, produced over 20 division one athletes, and has been a team that is consistently ranked in the top 20 nationwide.
This talent proved to be too much for Birmingham to handle. Birmingham Unified lost to Brother Rice in a one-sided affair, 14-1, dropping their overall record to 2-6.
Heading into their game against Rice, Birmingham already knew that they had their hands full with arguably the best team in the state.
“Brother Rice has by far been the best program in the state for a very long time,” junior Cameron Smyk said. “The last team to beat them was Birmingham in 2002. Every year we try to complete the task that they did, defeat arguably the best team in the Midwest. Whether or not it happens, we always make sure we go hard and go down fighting.”
The game started out with both teams playing very physical, and the first goal was not scored till over midway through the first quarter.
After scoring the first goal of the game, Rice was able to score a few quick goals to increase their lead to 4-0.
But Birmingham responded quickly with a goal of their own scored by junior J.D. Hess.
Following the goal was a celebration dance by Hess that seemed to help rejuvenate the Birmingham sideline.
But Hess’ goal turned out to be the only score of the game for Birmingham as Rice dominated the rest of the game outscoring Birmingham 10-0 the rest of the way.
Despite the final score, the team believed that there were still positives that they could take from the game. One of those being that the team was pleased by the way their defense played.
“Although the scoring was high,” junior Xavier Taylor said. “This was the first [game] that the defense played as a unit.”
Although there was some optimism about their performance, the team still needs to improve some areas of their game.
“The final score does not contrast to the game,” junior James Bertrand said. “But overall we have a lot of work to do.”
