Perkiomen Valley locks down Methacton, 7-2

WORCESTER — After building an early three-goal lead against host Methacton Monday, the Perkiomen Valley boys lacrosse team’s offense hit a wall.

Held in check by goaltender Jake Blitzer and the Warriors defense, the Vikings could do nothing but ride out the drought and lean on their defense.

And on this day, the Vikings defense did a stingy act that would have wowed Ebenezer Scrooge.

Yielding two goals the rest of the way, the Vikings defense held the fort until PV notched four fourth-quarter goals to pull away to a 7-2 win that all but locked up third place in the Pioneer Athletic Conference standings.

“We went into a drought,’ said PV head coach Bryan Churchey, “and we didn’t score for nearly two quarters.

“The only thing I told our defense was to have faith that our offense would get the goals we needed, and that’s what they did.’

Early on, it didn’t appear the Vikings would need any help.

Brian Fehr and Ben Minardi scored before the contest was seven minutes old, and the Vikings had an early advantage.

But before the Vikings could celebrate their good fortune, Blitzer suddenly did his best wall imitation, and the Warriors were able to stay close, even though their offense was finding it equally difficult to find the net.

“To their credit they were stout defensively,’ said Warriors head coach Nat Ryan. “They played well, and were confusing our kids.’

Minardi managed a goal late in the second period to increase the Vikings lead to 3-0, but while both sides had their fair share of man-up situations (17 penalties were called in the game, 10 on Perkiomen Valley), the score remained 3-0 at the break.

Methacton, however, cashed on a rash of Vikings penalties in the third quarter, with Conner Derrickson cutting the Warriors deficit to 3-1 in the quarter’s first minute and Aiden Denecke scoring two-men up to pull the Warriors within 3-2 in the final 2:00 of the third period.

Before the start of the final stanza, the Vikings huddled and pledged unity.

“We talked about being confident in our offense,’ said PV defender Nick Scenna. “Defensively, we just kept playing as we had been.

“And we kept going down a man or two, and we had to play with some mental toughness.’

And finally, the offense began finding the net.

Matt Baker scored 4:05 into the fourth to give the Vikings some breathing room, then Minardi scored twice and Mario Scartese added another in the latter half of the period, and the Vikings were home free.

“Our goal is to continue to play at a high level,’ Churchey said. “Both teams knew this was a very important game, and it was very exciting to come away with a win.’

“They beat us in every statistical category that mattered,’ Ryan said. “They earned the win in every single way.’

NOTES — PV outshot Methacton, 33-20. … Blitzer finished with 13 saves while PV backstop Kevin Mo had nine saves.