Charlotte Catholic Turns North Lincoln Into a 21-4 Playoff Exit
Charlotte Catholic did not treat Thursday like a coin-flip playoff game. The Cougars treated it like a bracket chore and handled it accordingly, beating North Lincoln 21-4 in a verified North Carolina high school lacrosse final.
That score is not subtle. It also was not empty. The scraped box score gave the night some actual shape: Charlotte Catholic produced 21 goals on 59 shots, piled up nine assists, and controlled the ball often enough that North Lincoln spent too much of the game reacting instead of playing downhill.
Leonard and Pawlowski kept the scoreboard moving
The loudest scoring line belonged to #8 Jason LEONARD, who finished with six goals and one assist. In a playoff game, six goals is not just production; it is a problem the other sideline never solved.
He was not alone. #9 James PAWLOWSKI added four goals and four assists, giving Catholic another pressure point and making the Cougars harder to load up against. #4 J. WIELECHOWSKI put together a distributor’s night with two goals and five assists, while #26 Emmett DRENSEK and #13 James HEDLEY each scored twice.
Catholic also got goals from #3 Duncan SIMPSON, #11 Max WHALEN, #22 Rogan CRENSHAW, #32 Ryan LEONARD, and #41 Declan LODEN. That is the part that makes this more than one scorer getting hot. Ten Cougars registered goals. For a defense, that is less a matchup and more a tax audit.
Hedley controlled the middle of the field
North Lincoln entered with a strong profile: 18-5 overall, unbeaten in conference play, 362 goals for the season, and several season-long stat leaders with real numbers attached. Hedley’s name was already all over that sheet, including 66 goals and 214 ground balls entering the matchup context.
Against Charlotte Catholic, he still found two goals and an assist, but the faceoff column told the bigger story: #13 James HEDLEY went 19-for-24 at the X, while #1 Taber BORST added a 1-for-3 mark. That gave North Lincoln a lot of possessions to manage, but Catholic still turned the game into a runaway. When you can survive that kind of faceoff volume and still win by 17, the rest of the field is doing work.
Catholic keeps looking like a bracket problem
The Cougars moved to 19-3 with the win, and the season profile continues to be nasty: 349 goals scored against 124 allowed, plus a perfect conference mark. This was not a one-night spike. It fit the pattern.
North Lincoln’s season should not get flattened into one ugly final. The Knights were 18-5, 12-0 in conference play, and had enough offensive history to demand attention. Thursday just belonged to a Charlotte Catholic team that made the margin feel decisive early and kept stacking goals until the bracket got the message.
For the Cougars, the takeaway is simple: they are still alive, still dangerous, and still making postseason opponents deal with too many scorers. Annoying behavior, frankly. Effective, though.
