After and eleven year absence, the Bishop Kearney Kings fielded a Varsity team, who opened up the 2010 lacrosse season in 2010 with a 14-3 loss to visiting St. Francis High School (of Buffalo - Section VI). It was the first game for both teams, but the Red Raiders have a game tomorrow when the travel to Aquinas for a noon start.

 -- The first Section Five game of 2010 ended with St. Francis (Section Six) defeating Bishop Kearney 14-3. The Red Raiders controlled the entire game, and led the entire 48 minutes. Twenty-four players made the scorebook for St. Francis in their first game of the season; including thirteen players with either a goal or an assist.

The scoring efforts for the Red Raiders were led by senior attackman Joshua Rogers (2g-2a). Other significant scoring came from sophomore midfielder Cooper Stefaniak (3g) and junior attackman and Captain Jake Giarrano (2g-1a).

The Red Raiders scored the first six goals spanning two quarters. Giarrano scored both of his goals in the first quarter. His first goal came on a drive from the outside at 7:27. Four minutes later he scored again after picking up his own saved shot on the crease for a strong second effort. The first Bishop Kearney goal came at 2:12 remaining in the second quarter.  The goal was scored by junior middie Bob Longboat and assisted by senior Shane Ashe. The Kings came down in a fast break situation (two of their three goals came on fast breaks) and after three crisp passes Ashe found Longboat open alone on the crease. The half ended with the score at 6-1.

In the third quarter St. Francis added three more goals. Stefaniak added two of his goals during the third quarter. Bishop Kearney opened up the fourth quarter with two goals in a row. The first goal came at 10:21 as Longboat scored his second goal of the game during a scrum on the crease where he kicked the ball into the back of the net. The final goal of the game for the Kings came at 6:30 with another fast break scenario. Sophomore Andrew Chadwick scored the final goal after running straight down the center and finishing in the back of the net.

Rogers, from St Francis, added both of his assists and one of his goals in the final quarter. The first was scored on an outside shot with an assist from Jeremy Albert. In the last two he fed the inside crease hitting Daniel Regan on the first and Michael Gallagher on the second.

Overall the ball spent a lot of time on the ground, as is evidenced by the combined 114 ground balls between the two teams. St. Francis won the majority of the battles, picking up 80 ground balls. Leading the charge for the Red Raiders was Giarrano (9), junior defenseman Anthony DeMarco (8), senior midfielder Grant Garvin (7) and Stefaniak (7).

St. Francis had six different players take the draw for the face-off and they combined for a 79% win percentage. Leading at the draw was Garvin with 6/7 (86%). In the cage, St. Francis' Bradley Whitford only faced 7 shots on cage and finished with 4 saves. Kyle Miller, on the other hand, saw shots all day, facing 29 shots on cage for the Kings; he finished with 15 saves (52%).

For a more complete look at the numbers, check out the full statistics.