Benilde St. Margaret’s took down Lakeville North 18-10 at Chaska High School on Saturday to win the Class A boys lacrosse state championship.

Benilde attacker Gus Bell led the way for the Red Knights with six goals, followed by midfielder Sky Rold’s five goals and one assist. Lakeville attacker Carson Piscitiello scored three goals while attacker Blake Piscitiello and midfielder Lane Johnson logged two goals and one assist apiece.

“It means everything,” said Benilde head coach Giuseppe Palermo. “This group of guys is one special group and the way they drew all season long put it together. I knew that was going to happen today.”

Bell set the tone early with three straight unanswered goals to give Benilde a 3-0 lead with five minutes to go in the first quarter. The Red Knights put two more points on the board to the Panthers’ one to end the first quarter with a 5-1 lead.

“I knew we had to set the tone early,” said Bell of his three goals. “They have a great team and we had to take it to him right away. I just decided that we’re gonna win this game at the beginning.”

Lakeville immediately responded with three straight goals to trim the Benilde lead down to one just three minutes into the second quarter. Rold dominated the next five minutes with three goals to give the Red Knights an 8-4 lead. Lakeville’s Blake Piscitiello scored off the Henry Johnson assist right before the half as Benilde held the 8-5 lead heading into the break.

“We stayed on course,” said Palermo. “Lacrosse is a game of runs. We know that.”

After Benilde extended the lead to 10-5 right out of halftime, Lakeville went on a 3-1 stretch to shorten the Red Knights lead to 11-8 through the first eight minutes of the third quarter. Benilde came back with three unanswered goals — two in the last 17 seconds of the quarter — to enter the final 12 minutes of play with a 14-8 lead.

Carson Piscitiello netted his third goal of the game just 16 seconds into the fourth quarter, immediately followed up by Bell’s fifth goal of the game to cancel it out. The Red Knights held the momentum the rest of the way, outshooting the Panthers 3-1 the rest of the way to clinch the state title.

“It’s incredible,” said Bell. “I don’t even have any words to describe it right now. I’m just ecstatic for our boys and for our team.”

“It’s one of the best days of my life, that’s for sure,” said Rold. “I grew up with most of these kids. I’ve been playing with them since I was in third grade. It was the closest team I’ve ever played with and I’ll never forget.”

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Shortly after Lakeville South secured its second state title in three years via a 12-8 win over Prior Lake on Saturday at Eden Prairie High School, seniors Tori Tschida, Katie Grubbs and Sivanna O’Brien got together with the trophy and Cougars coach Joel Tornell for a photo.

The players looked over at their coach and said, “10 years together.”

Lakeville South celebrates after winning the high school girls state championship game between against Prior Lake at Eden Prairie High School on Saturday. (Matt Blewett / Special to Pioneer Press)

The trio of seniors first started playing basketball together in kindergarten. A few years later, Tornell introduced them to lacrosse. He was their coach all the way up the ranks, including now at the varsity level. They’ve been through the highs and lows of the sport.

“That’s part of what makes this special,” Tornell said.

And also emotional, Grubbs noted.

“My first reaction is that I don’t ever get to play with these people again. I was still kind of sad at first,” Grubbs said. “But then yeah, you won a state championship. It’s kind of a bittersweet feeling.”

But there’s no better way for it to end than with a title. O’Brien said this title was “much more sentimental” than the one the Cougars broke through with in 2022.

“Definitely ending on a very good note that we wanted to end on,” she said.

That wasn’t a certainty in the first half on Saturday. Lakeville South was perfect entering last year’s state semifinals, only to be upset by Benilde-St. Margaret’s. A similar plot was unfolding in Saturday’s state final.

Lakeville South midfielder Sivanna O’Brien, 15, sprints after recovering a loose ball against Prior Lake in the girls state high school lacrosse championship game at Eden Prairie High School on Saturday. (Matt Blewett/Special to the Pioneer Press)

The Cougars (19-0) led Prior Lake 4-1 early, but the Lakers responded with five straight goals to claim a 6-4 advantage in the second quarter. Prior Lake’s sideline was rocking. Momentum had firmly shifted.

Lakeville South didn’t fare well under similar circumstances in 2023.

“I think last year was a case of us panicking, not knowing what to do,” O’Brien said. “Definitely just really playing nervous, playing panicky, wanting to win really bad and not just playing how we know we should play and how we work really hard and practice really hard to play.”

But the Cougars refused to be rattled this time around. They scored the game’s next seven goals, as Tschida controlled the draw and, when it was tested, Lakeville South’s defense answered the call. Prior Lake went a quarter and a half without netting a goal.

“We just had to get back to our game. The message today was play Lakeville South lacrosse all the way. Worry about the individual pieces after that. … All season long, all we said was it’s all about the Ws. They killed it today,” Tornell said. “My senior captains controlled the game. My defenders played lights out. My goalie was outstanding. The attacks moved the ball. It was a team effort all the way around, and that’s who we are.”

The response was a clear sign of how far the Cougars have come. Grubbs said Tornell trained the team all year to stay loose and confident, “no matter if you’re up by five or down by 10.”

Lakeville South midfielder Katie Grubbs passes in the third quarter of the state high school girls lacrosse championship game against Prior Lake at Eden Prairie High School on Saturday. (Matt Blewett / Special to Pioneer Press)

But that muscle wasn’t tested all year. Tschida noted Lakeville South maybe trailed 1-0 in some games, but not much beyond that. The Cougars were dominant.

So perhaps it was fitting Saturday provided a final examination of not just their physical abilities, but their mental fortitude.

They passed it with flying colors.

And, in the process, they proved themselves to be worthy champions. And a group of special seniors is going out on top. Grubbs called the experience “nostalgic.”

“All year we were thinking, ‘Oh, this is our last game together. Last practice, last this, last that.’ But this game we just went into it like, ‘We’re going to win another state championship,’” Grubbs said. “I feel like we won as a family, and not just as a team. We’re very connected.”

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PINEHURST, N.C. — Bryson DeChambeau turned Pinehurst No. 2 into a one-man show Saturday in the U.S. Open.

When he wasn’t smashing eight drives of 340 yards or more, he was getting his right hip worked on between holes. He pumped fists and entertained thousands of sunbaked fans on his way to a 3-under 67 and a three-shot lead going into the final round.

At stake is a chance to capture a second U.S. Open title with a reimagined game — still powerful as ever — and a physique that isn’t quite the “Incredible Bulk” he was at Winged Foot in 2020.

Still ahead is a final round with Rory McIlroy, Patrick Cantlay and Matthieu Pavon three shots behind and all looking capable of giving him a run for the silver trophy.

DeChambeau, a runner-up by one shot last month in the PGA Championship with another top 10 at the Masters in April, was at 7-under 203. He is the only player to post three straight rounds of 60s in a U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2.

Ludvig Aberg, the super Swede who started the third round with a one-shot lead, fell victim to the slick, domed greens to make a triple bogey on the 13th hole that sent him to a 73 and left him five shots back along with Hideki Matsuyama (70).

DeChambeau said it was “two hips that are not fantastic” from his speed training that led him to ask for a trainer and get worked on in the woods after the 10th hole. He went to the 11th, belted a 347-yard drive, hit wedge safely to the center of the green and made a putt from just outside 12 feet to become the first player to reach 7 under all week.

With the tee slightly forward on the 13th, he wished aloud to have a go at the green, figured it wasn’t practical and said to the gallery, “Don’t boo me,” as he reached for iron. He missed the fairway into a bunker and sent his approach dancing by the cup.

He missed that 6-footer for birdie, but picked up birdie on the 14th and led by as many as four shots. But he wasn’t immune from a big number, just like so many others.

DeChambeau’s shot to the 16th rolled off the front of the green. His chip was too weak and returned toward his previous shot. His next pitch was only slightly better and he missed the putt to make double bogey.

But he answered with a pitching wedge that narrowly cleared the fearsome bunker right of the par-3 17th and holed a 12-foot putt.

Pavon, a winner at Torrey Pines in his first year playing the PGA Tour, joined DeChambeau as the only players to avoid a round over par this week. He saved one par from in front of a wiregrass brush and attached pins when he could in his round of 69.

McIlroy (69) and Cantlay (70), adversaries in the Ryder Cup and in the PGA Tour board room, will be in the penultimate group. They stayed in different ways.

McIlroy began to soar early on the back nine by riding some good putting — a 10-foot birdie on the 12th, a key par save from 6 feet on the 13th, a wedge to tap-in range on the 14th and another huge par save on the 16th.

But he dropped two shots on the par 3s and was farther back than he would have wanted. Still, it’s a chance. He famously said last year when he was runner-up at the U.S. Open, “I would go through 100 Sundays like this to get my hands on another major championship.”

He’s right there with another chance. And so is Cantlay, who delivered a strong putting performance of his own. Cantlay missed plenty of good birdie chances, but he stayed in the game with five par-saving putts of 7 feet or longer.

He also poured in a 20-foot birdie putt on the 17th that kept him in range.

Pinehurst was sweltering for the second straight day, with a heat index near 100 degrees (38 Celsius) and brown splotches of grass making the No. 2 course look fast and terrifying.

The third round began with 15 players under par, and it was reduced to eight players going into the final, demanding test of the major that rewards only the cleanest golf.

Collin Morikawa remarkably had a bogey-free round with a 66 that took him from a tie to 51st to just inside the top 10.

No one who played early managed to make a move. The course is so demanding that it exposes anyone not on the top of his game. That includes Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1 player who had to settle for a 71. It was his fourth straight round over par dating to Sunday at the Memorial, the first time he has had a stretch like that in his career.

Mother Nature is packing a wallop this week as high temperatures and dew points trigger an excessive heat warning on Sunday followed by a week of heavy rain storms deluging the Twin Cities metro causing possible damaging winds, hail and flash flooding conditions, according to the National Weather Service.

As the rain tapers off Saturday night, hot and humid air will move into the area. Sunday’s highs could reach the lower 90s. Along with a possible dew point in the low to mid 70s, the heat index could soar as high as 102.

The heat wave will be followed by multiple rounds of heavy rain, thunderstorms and potential flash flooding for the rest of the week, the weather service warned.

The forecast calls from rain in the metro beginning on Monday and lasting at least through Sunday.

Some areas could receive as much as 6 inches of rain in a seven-day period.

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