Boys lacrosse: Milestones piling up

• Photo: Boys lacrosse

Rosemount Grant Van Overbeke passes the ball during a recent home game. Rosemount finished the regular season 12-1 and won its first South Suburban Conference title.

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Achieving milestones has become a common occurrence for the Rosemount boys lacrosse team over the past few years.

The Irish program has steadily improved in its first five years. Rosemount passed a few more benchmarks during the past week and the recent accomplishments might be the most significant.

Wins over Lakeville South and Bloomington Kennedy last week gave the Irish a 12-1 regular season record. An 8-1 conference mark gave Rosemount its first conference title, the first in the history of the South Suburban Conference.

“Everyone had big smiles,” Irish coach Lance Kuehn said. “It’s the first year of the South Suburban Conference and our first title. From starting the team and five years later winning a conference title is a huge accomplishment for the Rosemount program for the youth on up. This group, the juniors, was part of the first youth teams we put together. Seeing this group from where they were on the youth teams to now, it’s awesome to see that happening.”

Rosemount finished the regular season by beating Lakeville South, 16-7, and Bloomington Kennedy, 17-7, last week.

Then the Irish added another first — they earned the No. 1 seed for the Section 3 tournament.

After a first-round bye, Rosemount will host the winner between No. 8 seed Rochester Mayo and No. 9 seed Rochester John Marshall at 7 p.m. Friday at Rosemount High School.

“Friday we’ll have our first-ever home field playoff game at Rosemount,” Kuehn said. “Going from having to play in the opening rounds to getting a bye and home-field advantage through the playoffs is pretty neat.”

Kuehn and the Irish will use the time to scout their next opponents. Rosemount beat Rochester Mayo 9-6 in late April.

“They were one of the few teams we were down at halftime and we really bounced back from a rough game,” Kuehn said. “A lot of things have changed since that game. Hopefully we’ll have an exciting game.

“We’ll go watch the other teams and see if anyone has changed since we played and what we know about them. We’ll see what’s going on. It kind of gives us an advantage there for all the hard work during the season.

The Irish will go into the playoffs with balanced scoring.

Against Lakeville South, nine players scored goals and 10 players tallied points.

Matt Weller had five goals and two assists. Jake Mortenson finished with three goals and an assist. Grant Van Overbeke had two goals. Andrew Haistings, Alec Hall, Joe Huelmoeller, Logan Lindberg, Chris Peterson and Conner Yepsen all scored once.

Carter Yepsen passed out five assists, while Lindberg added three assists.

“Top to bottom, the whole team, we had a lot of diversity scoring in that game,” Kuehn said. “You look and probably 80 percent of our goals have come from five guys. To have 10 guys scoring, we had some of the second line and one guy on the first line that hadn’t scored yet. That’s good diversity and helps show we are growing as a team and we’ll be able to rely on more players going into the playoffs.”

Chase Olson made 12 saves in goal for the Irish.

Tyler Voelker was the goaltender against Bloomington Kennedy, receiving his first varsity time. He made 12 saves.

Nine players were involved in the scoring for Rosemount, with Lindberg leading the way with four goals and four assists. Van Overbeke had a team-high five goals. Carter Yepsen had three goals and an assist.

Weller finished with two goals and an assist. Hall, Sam Richardville, and Conner Yepsen each scored once. Mortenson had three assists.

Tags: boys lacrosse, sports, rosemount, irish, prep