CB East finds energy, tops Hatboro-Horsham in District 1 first round

BUCKINGHAM >> It was a spot Central Bucks East defenseman Bryan McIntosh had been in plenty of times this season.
It was him defending one-on-one against Hatboro-Horsham’s stellar senior attackman Pierre Armstrong behind the cage. The clock was winding down and McIntosh needed a stop.

He got it and more when he jostled the ball out of Armstrong’s stick for a crucial ground ball and forced turnover.

The Patriots survived that last scare and ran out the clock on a hard-fought 10-8 win over the visiting Hatters in the first round of the District 1 boys lacrosse playoffs. East, which beat Hatboro-Horsham for the third time this year, shook off a slow start to the second half on its attack duo of Ryan Brown and Owen Griffin.

“(Armstrong)’s a good player and he can go right and left,” McIntosh said. “He was finishing right and finishing left so I had to play him straight up there. He’s the guy their offense runs through so I knew I had to make a big stop there and that’s what happened.”

Brown scored four goals while Griffin put in three for the Patriots. McIntosh, a junior, was a force on the back end with three forced turnovers and six ground balls while fellow defenseman Austin Prime had a forced turnover and three groundballs.

Armstrong and Logan Eldridge each scored a hat trick for Hatboro-Horsham with Joe Larouche and Owen Winter providing the other goals.

After East raced out to a 2-0 lead early in the first quarter, the Hatters cut it to one and trailed just 5-4 at the break. It made sense, given how well the two teams had gotten to know each other this season and for the Hatters, it was their chance to get some payback when it would hurt most.

“The kids enjoyed it and going into this game, they said because the (SOL) conferences switch next year, this might be our last run at a good CB East-HH game,” Hatters coach John Kurek said. “That was part of their fire. They played well, we made a couple mistakes and East took advantage of those mistakes.”

Winters tied the game up three minutes into the second half, 66 second later Armstrong put the Hatters in front and Eldridge made it 7-with 6:32 left in the third quarter.

“It felt good but we knew we had to keep pushing,” Armstrong, who is bound for Salisbury next year, said. “They took away that lead pretty quick.

“We started picking out matchups that we liked. We know our Achilles’ Heel is usually coming out of the half and we usually struggle there so we knew we had to come out hot.”

The Hatters’ two-goal lead lasted just 20 seconds as Brown scored quickly to cut the lead in half and 28 ticks after, he scored again to level things up with 5:35 to go in the third. Hatboro-Horsham stemmed the tide and looked like it was going to get into the fourth knotted up.

Then, Griffin got loose in front of the net, got hit from behind and while sprawling to the turf, somehow got off a shot that beat the goalie with 17 seconds left. It was the last lead change of the game.

“That and-1, they get the penalty and it’s a goal, it just turns everything around,” McIntosh said. “It’s a huge focus for us because we have a lot of guys who can score. We look to get anyone the best shot. Our coach says any game against a good team and these guys (Hatboro-Horsham) are a good team, you can only let in a certain amount of goals. If we do our job, the offense will do their job.”

Griffin scored again with 10:59 left in the game and Brown added his fourth with 7:31 to go. Armstrong got one back on a sublime individual effort but the East defense held the Hatters quiet after that, and with about 2:34 left, went into a time-killing offense.

The Hatters weren’t super-aggressive pressuring East, but did manage to get a turnover after about a minute and a half. That set up a play for Armstrong behind the cage with McIntosh on him.

McIntosh said because he’s left-handed, it gave him a backside check on Armstrong, who was preferring to feint left.

“We didn’t want them to get a shot because they could always get a rebound and anything could happen,” McIntosh said. “I’ve played Pierre every game this year and he’s one of the top attackmen in the league. We knew the routine in practice and drilled through their looks. It comes down to who completes their looks better.”

Kurek said he’s going to miss this year’s group of seniors for the way they led on the field. His four captains and the rest of the class were dedicated in every aspect and with a big core of sophomores and juniors coming back, Kurek hopes this season showed those guys what it takes.

The Hatters coach credited East as well, calling the Patriots a winning program that made winning plays. While he won’t have Armstrong and his classmates back, Kurek hopes their lessons can put the Hatters on that track.

“If it was a drill, if it was film, if it was a game they showed the guys how the game should be played,” Kurek said. “They showed the guys in the offseason how you should train. Hopefully that’s what passed down from the seniors to the underclassmen. They can only hear me bark so often but when it comes from a different guy and they’re getting corrected by a Pierre, it’s so different.”