Essex, MD – A fantastic first quarter was not enough as the #3 seeded Dragons fell to the #2 seed CCBC Essex Knights 15-12 in the Region 20 tournament semifinals.

The Knights jumped out to an early lead as they won the opening faceoff and score on the ensuing possession. After that it was all Howard for the next 15 minutes of play as faceoff specialist Brendan Tscherne (Baltimore, MD/St. Pauls) would win the next nine faceoffs in a row. The Dragons got their scoring started on an amazing feed into the middle by Adem Tekmen (Lewes, DE/Cape Henlopen) to Brian Zajac (Brookeville MD/Good Counsel) for a point blank dunk.

After Essex took the lead back, Brennan Treacy (Woodbine, MD/Saint Pauls) simply ran past his defender and fired home into the bottom left corner to tie the game up. Kaden Ross (Westminster, MD/Winters Mill) sniped in a long range shot just 90 seconds later as Howard took their first lead.

Early in the second quarter, Zajac curled from behind the net and saw his low shot sneak through the feet of the Essex goalkeeper to regain the lead at 4-3. A minute later it was Jason McElroy (Frederick, MD/Oakdale) intercepting a pass which lead to a transition opportunity with great feed by Jackson Krasny (Hagerstown, MD/Saint Maria Goretti) allowed Phillip Petersen to fire home.

The Dragons had all the momentum going as less than a minute later, a Jordan Swoyer (New Market, MD/Linganore) shot that went wide bounced off an Essex player right to Zajac, who scooped up the ground ball and guided a shot into the net for his hat trick.

Things fell apart for Howard from there as the Knights went on a 9-1 run with only a long distance rifle by Tekmen into the top of the net attempting to break the Essex momentum.

Swoyer and Petersen scored late in the third quarter with Swoyer, Ross and Cristian Quesada (Baltimore, MD/Cristo Rey Jesuit) scoring later fourth quarter goals, but the deficit proved too much for the Dragons to overcome.

Goalkeeper Evan Hock (Sykesville, MD/South Carroll) came up with 13 saves for Howard in another solid performance for the Dragons netminder.

The Dragons will now be forced to wait and hope that they receive an at-large bid into the national tournament for their season to continue.