Lions Sports Update (4/7)

LACROSSE
St. Mark’s varsity lacrosse had a slower week with just one contest, a road game at Allen High School.  The Lions dominated the game from the start and earned a 15-4 victory. Up next is a Tuesday evening home match against Highland Park at 7:00 pm, followed by the SPC tournament this weekend in Dallas.  St. Mark’s has earned the #2 seed in the SPC and will face a tough St. John’s squad on Friday at 7 pm @ St. Mark’s.

GOLF
On Monday, March 31, the St. Mark’s golf team competed in a pair of events. Senior Luke Lemons, junior Duff McKay, sophomore Sam Merryman, and freshmen Rafe O’Rear and Callan McCormick traveled to Fort Worth for the All Saints’ tournament hosted at Rivercrest Country Club. The challenging track was short but tight, and only one player in the field posted a score below par, St. Mark’s own Duff McKay. Having recently committed to play collegiate golf at Indiana University, McKay paced the field with a 68, securing individual championship honors amongst a strong group of competitors. Sam Merryman’s 75 also finished near the top of the leaderboard, but, unfortunately, the team total of 305 was 3 strokes behind the winning score of 302 posted by Highland Park. Meanwhile, the rest of the team played in Hockaday’s annual tournament at Brookhaven Country Club. Competing in pairs, the sophomore duo of Nolan Wartman and Peter Clark combined to shoot a 4-under 68 to place fourth in the event. Junior Jonathan Lobel and sophomore Luke Rogers finished second overall with an impressive 65, just one stroke behind the championship team of sophomores Brooks Main and James Hoak. What a fabulous showing across the board by the Lions golf team!

TENNIS
It was a busy week for the varsity tennis team, with two counter matches against ESD and Cistercian, respectively. Given the challenging wind conditions, a solid effort was evident, with all three singles matches decided in straight sets relatively quickly. ESD’s line-up offered some resistance, but the Lions proved too accurate and consistent in the end. With the overall match decided, both doubles line-ups competed in a pro set, each winning 8-6. The next match against Cistercian proved to be more difficult. Cistercian’s line one and two doubles were loaded with their top-ranked players. Unfortunately, the Lions lost both doubles, with line two offering more resistance, and the match went to a deciding set. Despite the setback, all three singles won their matches convincingly in straight sets, securing an overall victory for the Lions! The Lions look forward to a road counter match against Oakridge on Tuesday, April 8.

CREW
The last two weekends provided challenging competition for Marksmen rowers. The 1st and 2nd Varsity 4x’s headed to San Diego the weekend of March 28 to race in the 52nd San Diego Crew Classic. The Crew Classic brings together the fastest competitors on the West Coast and beyond. The event is second only to the Youth National Championships in terms of competitiveness. In both events, the Lions would face several of the teams they would see again in the A and B finals at Youth Nationals. In the 1v4x heats, rowers Linyang Lee, Eli Kraus, Hewes Lance, and Ian McGowan would finish 5th in time yet based on seeding and progression, they ended up in the B finals. In the heat, SM finished behind Texas Rowing Center by 2 seconds and Long Beach by 0.5 seconds. At last year’s Youth Nationals, those crews finished 3rd nationally and 13th nationally, respectively. In the B final, the boat caught a boat-stopping “crab” (a term for when a rower loses control of the oar, causing it to dig into the water and slow the boat) yet rallied to drive through the entire field and finish second. The 2v4x crew of Walker Stevens, Jack Shepro, Andrew Hofmann, and Eric Yi finished 7th in the A final. These results are even more impressive given that St. Mark’s was the only scholastic team competing against club teams, many of which had the depth to field multiple entries in each event.

This past weekend, St. Mark’s Rowing faced off again against Texas Rowing Center and The Woodlands in the Oklahoma City Invite. In a historical first, novice 4x’s got to race while it was snowing. The turbulent spring weather provided us with near-freezing temperatures in the morning, high winds, and light snow flurries. Despite these challenges, all crew members rose to the occasion and performed admirably. In the Novice 4x, the crew of Sawyer Goldstein, Jaxon Nguyen, Birken Oral and Charlie Tholking finished 1st in their flight. The crew of Holden Montgomery, James McGinnis, Parker Oskoui, and Dexter Canham finished second in their flight. In the 2x event, Linyang Lee and Eric Yi finished first in their flight, as did Mateen Mostafavipour and Diego Armendariz in their flight. Novice 2x of Caleb Ratcliff and Jack Wilson finished 1st in their flight. In the 2v4x Diego Armendariz, Charlie Mapes, Whit Edwards, and Mateen Mostafavipour finished 2nd in their flight.

In the first Varsity 4x, Marksmen Walker Stevens, Eli Kraus, Hewes Lance, and Ian McGowan beat Texas Rowing Center by 1.46 seconds to come in 1st. In a boat that raced as the 2v4x in San Diego, the 4x of Linyang Lee, Jack Shepro, Andrew Hofmann, and Eric Yi beat The Woodlands 1v by a more than healthy margin. The next 26 days will be filled with intensive training to prepare for the Central Youth Championships, the regional qualifying event for Youth Nationals.

BASEBALL
On Tuesday, April 1, the varsity baseball team traveled across Preston Hollow for an important counter contest at ESD. The Lions struck first against its rival as John Stephen Hohmann’s RBI single to RF staked St. Mark’s with an early lead. Jackson Ostella collected two key hits and made two terrific plays at 2B, which thwarted ESD from scoring crucial points. However, a couple of Lions’ errors and mishandled throws allowed ESD back into the game, giving the Eagles a 4-2 advantage in the bottom of the third inning. Shortly after that, a scrappy Lions offense manufactured two runs to tie the game. With one out in the top of the 7th, Jack Frary, the team’s leading hitter, smashed a ball to center field, scoring Jake DeBoever from 2nd base AND himself on an exhilarating yet exceptionally rare inside-the-park home run. Although he was inconsistent in allowing 4 hits, 7 walks, and 6 strikeouts on 5 runs (1 earned) in 6.1 innings of work on the mound, Deven Pietrzak battled the Eagles before turning the game over to Lucas Petrikas, who recorded the final out by striking out the 9-hole hitter with the tying run at third and winning run at second. Coincidentally, the 8-7 final score was also the same result as the non-counter home contest when St. Mark’s previously defeated ESD.

On Thursday, St. Mark’s hosted TACA (Black). Thanks to the earnest efforts of Don Denman, Ruff Field was deemed playable despite getting soaked by rain. Bolstered by their opportunity to get this game in before Friday’s washout, the Lions looked sharp in front of their energized home crowd. Five St. Mark’s hitters - Jackson Ostella, Jack Frary, Deven Pietrzak, Peter Rubi, and Alex Dahlander - all had one or more hits against the crafty TACA hurler. Henry Sun scored an important run after stealing second base late in the game as the Lions offense put together three runs in seven innings. Starting pitcher Lucas Petrikas was both dominant and efficient in five strong innings of work before turning the ball over to freshman southpaw Dylan Barnes, who secured a one-run save in the nail-biting 3-2 victory. Due to heavy rains, the Friday game at Colleyville Covenant Christian was canceled and will likely not be made up. At 7-4-1 on the season and 3-0 in the SPC North Zone, St. Mark’s will face conference powerhouse Oakridge in Arlington on Tuesday (5:30 pm) before returning home for Senior Appreciation Day vs. TACA on Friday (4:30 pm) and a non-conference matchup with Houston Christian on Saturday (12:00 pm).    

TRACK & FIELD
The varsity track & field team had their meet rained out this past weekend.  They compete again this Thursday and Friday at the Oakridge Invitational. 

ALUMNI ATHLETE NEWS
St Mark’s basketball alum Harrison Ingram ’21 put the finishing touches on an impressive rookie campaign with the San Antonio Spurs G League affiliate from Austin. The team finished second in the Western Conference regular season standings, earning a first-round playoff bye. Ingram’s double-double in the quarterfinals helped the Spurs win and a trip to Northern California for a semifinal matchup against the Stockton Kings on Sunday, April 6. Despite another double-double from Ingram, the Spurs lost a close game to a Kings team whose assistant coach, Aaron Mazibuko, was on the sidelines as a St Mark’s assistant coach several years ago. Ingram finished the season averaging 12.8 points, 9.5 rebounds, and 4.1 assists per game. He recently notched his first G League triple-double and also scored his first basket in an NBA game.