Bobby Pupich powers Huntley past Cary-Grove

WOODSTOCK – Sharp-shooting Bobby Pupich was just about to reveal where on his body he absorbed a recent injury when Huntley lacrosse coach Dom Saccomanno interrupted and silenced him.

“Disciplinary thing,” Saccomanno joked about the reason Pupich missed last week’s regular-season finale against Cary-Grove, insisting his senior attack is now “100%” physically.

The only information Huntley opponents need to know about the Red Raiders’ dangerous scorer is that he is, indeed, healthy. Pupich proved that against Cary-Grove in Wednesday night’s Marian Central Sectional semifinals, as he scored a career-high nine goals to lead Huntley to a 15-7 win.

Pupich had eight goals by halftime in helping the Raiders build a 10-4 lead. He had missed their 11-8 win over C-G last week because of his injury.

“Missing the last Cary game, I just wanted to leave it all out on the field,” Pupich said. “It’s always been a rivalry. We just came out here and outworked them.”

Cameron Abordo and Nick Toman added two goals each for Huntley (17-3), which will play in a sectional final for the fifth straight year Friday when it faces Barrington, a 19-3 winner over Hampshire in Wednesday’s first semifinal. The game will be played at 4:30 p.m. to accommodate Barrington’s graduation.

Michael Boniak and SJ Engmann also scored for Huntley, which is looking to win a sectional championship for the third time in the past four years.

“I feel like we did a good job of getting into our zones,” said Pupich, who also had an assist. “I got a lot of opportunities from my teammates looking at me on the crease. That helped me get the points I got today.”

Pupich opened the scoring with two goals 39 seconds apart midway through the first quarter. Evan Lamb cut the deficit in half before Pupich, who will play lacrosse for Howard Community College in Maryland next year, scored his third goal late in the quarter to make it 3-1.

“Our big thing this year has been, ‘We don’t need to start off hot. We need to start off correctly,’ ” Saccomanno said, “whether it’s having a solid possession against a team that we know we’re going to have a back and forth with all game, or whether it’s getting one [goal] quick against a team that you know you’re maybe not going to score a lot against.”

Michael Dunkin scored five goals for Cary-Grove (13-5), and his third of the half had the Trojans within 6-4 with 5:43 left before halftime.

“I thought we started out well. I knew we would,” C-G coach Adam Valiga said. “Our guys were ready to play. They always play their butts off. I never have a question about that. We just couldn’t get possession of the ball enough throughout the game. [Huntley] had the ball a lot more than we did.”

Huntley closed the half with three more goals from Pupich and one from Abordo, who also assisted on one of the goals. Engmann set up Pupich with 15 seconds left in the half to increase Huntley’s lead to 10-4.

Pupich had another goal in the third quarter. He then watched almost the entire fourth quarter from the sideline, as Saccomanno saw no reason to risk potential injury to his dynamic scorer with his team up 13-4 after three.

Dunkin’s fourth goal early in the fourth snapped a string of seven straight goals by Huntley. The senior attack scored again a minute later before Jack Lamb fired in the Trojans’ final goal.

“He’s just a product of hard work,” Valiga said of the veteran Dunkin. “He gets better every single day, outstanding leader. We’re going to miss him tremendously. He’s been our rock the last couple of years.”

Huntley goalie Anthony Taylor made a couple of critical saves in the first half, then he and his defenders settled in. The Raiders’ active sticks included those of Kaiden Fewell, Ryan Baumley, Kelley Gassner, Austin Allegretti, Dominick Goodwin, Nathan Gumucio, Colton Alexander, Colton Benedict and Adrian Passarelli.

“We had a lot of picked-off passes, disrupted passes,” Saccomanno said. “Our defensive sticks were really active causing turnovers.”

Evan Lamb also scored for Cary-Grove.