Vikes pick perfect time to post dramatic victory

By: Lance Manion
   The South Brunswick High School boys lacrosse team’s most dramatic victory of the season couldn’t have come at a better time.
   After winning four straight games to start the year, the Vikings entered Tuesday’s contest against East Brunswick — the Greater Middlesex Conference’s hottest team — having lost two of their previous three, dropping a tough 11-7 decision to St. Joseph and a 12-8 decision to North Brunswick in recent action.
   Beginning the day in a three-way tie for second place in the conference, a loss would have slid the Vikings into sole possession of fourth place. And for a team that has appeared in each of the past five GMC Tournament championship games, that was out of the question.
   Despite letting a late three-goal lead slip away, South Brunswick prevailed when Kevin Lally scored off a feed from Chris Laurita in triple overtime to hand the team a wild 10-9 victory.
   According to head coach Mark Ziminski, it was only the second triple-overtime game in team history.
   "I think this was something we were really prepared for," Ziminski said of the overtime sessions. It was the first game action the team had seen in over a week, so exhaustion wound up being a non-factor.
   "Our team defense," Ziminski added, "was really excellent, and we controlled the 6-on-6 play well."
   Ziminski has done a superb job keeping together a Vikings team that lost its leading returning scorer, Rutgers-bound junior Kory Kelly, to multiple knee ligament tears suffered in the first game of the season. The eighth-year coach said he preached achieving greater scoring balance before the season began, and that the team was forced into just that once its top player was lost for the year.
   "Ironically enough, we tried talking about trying to do that early on, but when Kory went down, it was something we really had to do," Ziminski said. "We were looking for a bunch of different guys to pick up the slack."
   His players responded, quickly turning the Vikings into perhaps the most balanced team in the conference. Three different players have scored multiple goals for South Brunswick in six of their eight games.
   Leading the way as of Tuesday were a trio of junior attackmen, Laurita (19 goals, 17 assists), Lally (16 goals, 11 assists), and Theo Smyk (20 goals, 4 assists).