Woodbury boys lacrosse: Royals come up short, start 1-4

After three losses last week, Woodbury boys lacrosse head coach Rich Limpert said the season hasn’t started out as well as he has hoped, but nobody is throwing in the towel yet.

Since opening the year with an 8-7 Suburban East Conference win over Roseville, Woodbury (1-4) has lost four straight games.

“I’m not worried,” Limpert said. “We’ve had a chance to win all of those games and be 4-1 now. I’m proud of the guys. We’re generating chances to score and playing well enough defensively to win. We just need to finish on offense and put the ball in the net.”

Most recently, the Royals fell 10-6 to non-conference foe Wayzata on Monday, April 25, in Wayzata, 5-4 to SEC opponent Mounds View at Woodbury on Wednesday, April 27, and 10-9 to non-conference Rochester Mayo on Friday, April 29.

Limpert said his team still needs to put together a “full game.”

“We have to come out faster,” Limpert said. “The guys have to get ready to go right away. We have to find a way to get them fired up to come out and play a full game, rather than just a half. It’ll come. Every team we’re playing is playing four quarters and we’re only playing a half.”

In the loss to Wayzata (1-2), Woodbury fell behind 9-1 after three periods of play, before outscoring the Trojans 5-1 in the fourth period. Against Mounds View (3-0), the Royals fell behind 4-0 in the first period, before outscoring the Mustangs 3-1 for the remainder of the game. Limpert said Mounds View only accumulated three shots on goal in the second half.

“It was 4-0 then we started playing,” Limpert said. “That second half we had the ball almost the whole time. If you allow only three shots in a half, you should almost always win that game.”

Against Wayzata, Jim Rudesill led the way for the Royals with three goals, senior captain Matt Wardell scored two goals, senior Blake Bergherr had a goal and an assist and senior captain Ben Alberts had three assists. Josh Erickson got the start in goal and made 10 saves. The shots were 20-20 in the contest.

In the loss to Mounds View, Alberts had a four-point game to lead the way for Woodbury with two goals and two assists. Additionally, Wardell scored a goal and Bergherr had a goal and an assist. Erickson made 11 saves in the nets for the Royals. Woodbury outshot the Mustangs 23-16 in the game.

Versus Rochester Mayo (1-2), Alberts and Bergherr each had four points. Alberts had two goals and two assists and Bergherr scored three goals and added one assist. Additionally, Rudesill had two goals and one assist and Thomas Gand and Christian Turner tallied assists. Alex Linnerooth made the start in goal for Woodbury, saving six shots. Woodbury had 30 shots on goal in the game.

Woodbury hopes to get back on track with three games this week. The Royals took on Rochester Century (2-3) on Monday, May 2, after the Bulletin went to press. Next, Woodbury plays host to SEC foe White Bear Lake (2-3) on Wednesday, May 4, before traveling to non-conference Breck (1-4) on Friday, May 6.

“We’ll get it going,” Limpert said. “We’re still trying to find out who our leaders are, where our production is coming from and who is going to making our big saves in the big games.”

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