Sports

South Bend Bears Boys Lacrosse: Mid-Season Report

Sofia Nevala , Sports Reporter

April 12, 2024

Photo By: Kallan Graybill @kgsportsphotography

The South Bend Bears boys high school lacrosse team has reached the halfway point of their season. Through eight games the team has won six, only falling to Naperville Central (IL) and Fort Wayne Bishop Dwenger. They opened the season on March 9th with two notable wins against Indianapolis Roncalli and Evansville Reitz, 7-3 and 10-4, respectively. Junior Bly Johnson and sophomore Ben Nevala made their presence known early against Roncalli, with Johnson notching a hat trick (three goals) while Nevala scored one goal and was credited with two assists. In the second game of the day against Reitz, Johnson and Nevala were important factors again, with each scoring two goals and an assist. On the defensive side of the ball, senior goalie Saul Zabukovic had a combined 14 saves, only giving up seven goals through two games. Junior Brody Damrill proved to be a major defensive threat picking up eight ground balls while sophomore Hunter Ricks picked up 12 ground balls in his first ever lacrosse games.

After the opening weekend, the team continued to have success, beating New Prairie Concordia, Marian and Elkhart. Notably against Marian, freshman Owen McNally scored four goals in the 10-4 win while Damrill had a season high eight ground balls. Despite the loss of Ricks to injury, the Bears have held strong also gaining an important and impressive offensive performance by freshman Sam Evans (13 goals in 6 games), completing a skilled trifecta at attack with Johnson (27 points) and Nevala (25 points). As the Bears come off spring break, they are met with a busy schedule, on Wednesday they faced Laporte winning 13-1 they will continue on playing Penn on April 12 and Victory Christian on April 13. To close out the season, the Bears will also have important games against Northridge, Fort Wayne Carroll and Crown Point amongst others. Last year left a bad taste in the Bears mouths after losing in overtime in the Indiana Club Division championship game to Munster. Despite losing many key players from the 2023 team to graduation, the Bears have come back ready and look to return to the state championship game in June and bring a championship back to the 574 once again.

The Bears resume their season tonight at 7 p.m. at Everwise School Field as they take on the Penn Kingsman. Come out and support your Adams classmates as they honor their seniors, Saul Zabukovic, David Nagy, Peter Kottkamp (Trinity) and Stephen Stuart (Homeschool), during a pregame celebration!

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About the Contributor

Sofia Nevala , Sports Editor

Sofia Nevala is a Senior at John Adams High School and is very excited to be back contributing to The Tower this year as the Sports Editor. Sofia is looking forward to casting a bigger spotlight on local sports, including those at Adams and Notre Dame, through her work at The Tower. She is also looking forward to continuing to write, what some may consider, too many articles about the NHL. A lacrosse player for the South Bend Bears girls’ team, she also enjoys reading, traveling, going to concerts and watching various sports. Sofia can be found at almost every one of Notre Dame’s home hockey games or at the Ice Box watching her brother play for Adams. Along with that, she is up at 9 a.m. every Saturday in the fall watching her favorite show “College GameDay” on ESPN. Some of her greatest accomplishments include: growing her hockey jersey collection to sixteen, helping start the South Bend Bears High School girls lacrosse team, and learning to play piano at the age of four along with violin in the first grade. She loves all music and is constantly, to the annoyance of her brother, singing along to the radio in the car. She learned to read music during her years of taking piano and violin lessons, which was a great help as she taught herself to play ukulele during COVID. She is an unapologetic country music fan though she gets much criticism for it from her friends. She believes there aren’t many things better than blasting country music in the car with the windows down. After high school, Sofia hopes to move on to college and study Kinesiology or Movement Science; something that will lead her on the Physical Therapy track…one of the only health majors that has little involvement with blood! Her ultimate goal is to get a Doctorate in Physical Therapy, which would give her an opportunity to work in professional sports, preferably in a big city. Between now and getting her Doctorate, Sofia will continue to grow her hockey jersey collection, try to convince her parents that she needs to go to another concert, and receive way too many ESPN notifications on her phone. Sofia is excited for her final year with The Tower and hopes that she can continue to share her love of sports with the Adams community.