Glenside, PA- After a crushing loss to St. Joseph’s Prep last season in the Philadelphia Catholic League title game, the La Salle Explorers seeked payback in regular season play this time around. The archrivals squared off on a rainy overcast Friday afternoon primed for an excellent game of lacrosse.
The Explorers jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead after quick faceoff wins by Anthony Giuliani, both goals coming off of settled possessions and well timed shots. The Hawks new head coach Sean Delaney chose to burn a timeout and settle the team down.
Following the timeout timeout, the Hawks Senior Captain Kevin Stump stepped up to net his first of the day. This sparked the back and forth scoring that would continue throughout the rest of the game. All the way to the end of the first quarter this would continue as Navy commit, Alex Scalamandre, was able to find Notre Dame commit, Pete Gayhardt, with 33 seconds left to bring the Hawks within one.
Starting the second quarter the Hawks were down 4-3, but it didn’t last long when junior Villanova commit Dan Fisher won the face-off and buried it in the back of the cage for only his second goal of the season. The scoring continued on both sides for the majority of the second half. Kevin Stump, who finished the game with 5 goals, helped carry the Prep throughout the quarter. However, La Salle was able to keep up with the scoring due to a number of penalties that caused The Prep points. The Explorers were able to gain momentum going into halftime after scoring with 40 seconds left to take a 7-6 lead.
The third quarter in Glenside is was won by the Explorers fast ball movement in the offensive zone and excellent goaltending by Matt Mclaren. La Salle jumped out to an 11-7 lead with the only Prep goal coming from Kevin Stump off a pass from Griffin Flemming. However, the Hawks showed life when senior Captain Kyle Scheurle took flight scoring with only 5 seconds left in the quarter.
St. Joseph's Prep vs. La Salle - photo courtesy of St. Joesph's Prep
Moving into the final quarter of play with the lead, the Explorers were wary of this and held the ball, only taking shots when open. Brendan Meagher, who had three goals on the day, aided the Explorers in extending their lead to 13-8 with only 4:14 left in the game. The Hawks Pete Gayhardt was able to get his second goal of the game; however, only 2:03 remained. The Prep would fall to their rival 13-9.
Hawk’s coach Sean Delaney was disappointed about the loss.
“The key to winning this game was keeping our composure,” Delaney said.
He went on to discuss how they failed to do so and La Salle capitalized on the penalties The Prep committed. Moving forward, Delaney looks to analyze and improve upon their mistakes.
“It’s going to be a heavy film week,” Delaney said.
The Explorers were ecstatic about the win; however, they have bigger goals than beating The Prep in regular season play. Both teams are the heavy favorites to be the last teams standing in the PCL, and they hope to have a rematch in the PCL Championship.
Looking Ahead: St. Joseph’s Prep will play at home vs. Father Judge on Wednesday, May 4th. La Salle will also play on the same day away vs. Roman Catholic. Both games are scheduled to start at 3:45PM.