Cardinal Gibbons enters the postseason as the N&O's top-ranked boys' lacrosse

Below are all of the match-ups in the boys' lacrosse and we'll update this blog with links to our coverage from every round. Apex is in the state championship Saturday.

Fuquay-Varina plans to add two varsity athletics programs next year – boys' lacrosse and gymnastics. The Bengals were poised to be the only team in next year's Southwest Wake Athletic 4A Conference to not have either sport.

Fuquay athletics director James Mountford said that there is enough interest at the school to field the varsity teams.

Two more varsity lacrosse programs in the area are expected this spring.

The NCHSAA has released a draft of next year's lacrosse conferences, and on them are a few new programs. Sanderson, which fielded a club boys' lacrosse team last spring, will be a varsity. Heritage will field a varsity girls' lacrosse team for the first time.

The Conference 2 boys lacrosse standings at the end of the playoffs, plus the all-conference team and awards. "Conference 2" includes the seven Tri-Nine programs who play the sport, plus Cardinal Gibbons.

As you read in Nate Taylor's story from Friday night, Cardinal Gibbons was inches away from sending the boys lacrosse championship game into overtime against Lake Norman.

But instead, the final shot of the game hit the crossbar as time expired and Gibbons lost by one. Below is the video of that moment, as posted on YouTube by username GibbonsLacrosse. It starts with a draw with 15 seconds left - right after Gibbons had just scored to cut the deficit to one.

It's worth watching. Well, maybe not if you're a Gibbons fan.

And if you are a Gibbons fan, I posted a different video below that one of pretty sweet highlight from this year - a one-handed goal by Danny Dorsett - that was also under the GibbonsLacrosse YouTube account and deserves to be linked somewhere as well.

Brackets and locations of N.C. Independent Schools Athletic Association playoffs in baseball, softball, girls soccer, 3A boys tennis, boys lacrosse, girls lacrosse and track & field.

The boys lacrosse playoffs start this Friday. Holly Springs and Carrboro earned wild-card spots while Broughton, Jordan, Chapel Hill and Cardinal Gibbons are No. 1 seeds after winning their respective conferences.

East Chapel Hill, a 2-seed, is the defending East regional champ while Northwest Guilford is the defending state champion.

The NCHSAA finalized the boys and girls lacrosse conferences for this year. There were no changes in the area from the NCHSAA's first draft, which can be found by clicking here.

The N.C. High School Athletic Association has released its first draft of this spring's boys and girls lacrosse conferences. Since less than a fourth of NCHSAA schools have either program, new conferences are made bringing together those that do. Finalized conferences will be released later.

Among the proposed changes:

Coach of the Year: Paul Robison, Middle Creek
Offensive Player of the Year: James Hughes, Middle Creek
Defensive Player of the Year: Emil Weiss, Apex

First team