La Salle rides defense past St. Joe’s Prep for fourth straight PCL title

MARPLE >> La Salle’s defense has come a long way in just a few months.

At the start of the season, with a handful of new players breaking into the rotation, the Explorers boys lacrosse team struggled at times on the defensive end. Through it all, the coaching staff saw a lot of potential and kept pressing the unit to keep working and improving.

Friday, the Explorers’ defense turned in one of its best efforts of the season as La Salle locked down St. Joe’s Prep 9-1 at Cardinal O’Hara to win its fourth straight Philadelphia Catholic League title.

“They’ve come a long way, at the beginning of the year we played Seton Hall Prep and lost 21-10, everything went in,” La Salle coach Bill Leahy said. “For them to make some adjustments and have them play within themselves like they did today, they were exceptional today in the third quarter when we were a little shaky offensively.”

Senior goalie Christian Suter, who waited three years behind current Ohio State freshman Michael Clibanoff, embodied the defense’s growth on Friday. The first-year starter stopped seven of the eight shots he faced and did it working in tandem with his defensemen and midfielders.

Suter felt his defenders consistently won their one-on-one matchups and made his job as easy as possible. There are guys like Suter who waited years for a chance to play at La Salle that could have started elsewhere but the goalie said it’s the team culture that made the wait worth it.

“I waited three years for this moment, so happy we could go out and get it done,” Suter said. “It’s the culture. The locker room environment here is like nothing I’ve ever been a part of. The guys are great and the coaches want you to succeed on and off the field.”

La Salle’s defense was hit hard by graduation last year, but the Explorers weren’t left completely void. Senior Brett Mallee, a Yale recruit who missed last season with a knee injury, returned to the fold but there was still work to be done as a group.

Senior Chase Rondeau, who forced three turnovers in Friday’s win, felt things came together in La Salle’s close loss to national power Hill Academy. The long pole defensemen said being able to hang with a team like that showed the whole team and especially the defense, it could reach the potential the coaching staff saw.

“It’s like a totem pole, you have to work your way up,” Rondeau said. “Some kids are fortunate enough to get time right away but for most of the guys it’s that totem pole outlook and that’s life. You aren’t going to get a job and be the CEO right away, you have to work your way up.”

Leahy, who won his 500^th game leading La Salle this year, felt his defensive group had to achieve three things in order to be successful.

“They’ve become better competitors, we’ve spent a lot of time competing and realizing it’s OK to go out and win,” Leahy said. “The second is being better lacrosse players and third is not blowing ourselves up with errors and we drill those three things all the time.  

“When we beat St. Augustine Prep last week in overtime, we played 45 minutes of great lacrosse and three minutes of chicken with our head cut off, it was a trainwreck. So to see them put a whole game together was great.”

Defending is only half the game and the Explorers weren’t quite sure how they’d be challenged offensively. In the regular season, La Salle topped the Prep 10-1 but the top-seeded Explorers didn’t think they’d see the same kind of defense.

Friday, the Hawks came out in a zone and it played pretty well into senior Zach Coar’s hands. The attackman netted three of his four goals and tacked on an assist by halftime but ceded he was just the one finishing off the work his teammates did around him.

Leahy felt the zone defense played well for the lefty Coar and the Explorers coach also noted the play of Kyle Cullen who a goal and assist but also directed the offense very well.

“Really, we just stuck to our coach’s gameplan and doing what he said,” Coar said. “We did well and executed better this time. It just all happened, they went to a zone and I was able to find the pocket a few times but that’s all from my teammates moving around, it was perfect and all worked out.”

Prep goalie Tommy McHugh played a fantastic game, making eight stops and doing everything he could to keep the Hawks in the game.

La Salle’s offense did sputter a bit in the third quarter, starting the frame off with four straight turnovers. The coaches noted that’s not something the Explorers can afford to do in the state tournament but Friday, the defense was playing well enough to take care of it.

“We take a lot of pride in it,” senior defensive midfielder Shane Cassel said. “St. Joe’s Prep is a big rival for us. Usually against big teams we try to set a goal, like letting up six or less goals like we did against DeMatha, but this team, we’re just ready to go out and play against them. We knew it would be different but we came out with a lot of pride.”

As Coar said, there’s a good chance the teams will meet again in the District 12 title game next week and the senior attacker expected the Prep will probably throw something else new at them if they do meet.

The Explorers saved most of their celebration until after the game and even Leahy was surprised when they didn’t run around the field with the PCL trophy but instead split into their unit huddles to break down the game on their own. This group hasn’t won a state title and that’s the ultimate goal now.

For the seniors, Friday was their last day of school so the only thing keeping them together is the amount of games they keep winning to earn more days in the season.

“We do celebrate and we love winning games, but we love having one more day with each other more, that’s always the big goal, have one more day,” Cassel said. “I never want to leave, the school year ended today and the lacrosse season can last at most another month so I just want to keep it going as long as possible.”

“That was the talk between us seniors, this was just the start,” Rondeau said. “Coach always says we’re a pack of wolves and so far, it’s a gazelle we’re chasing. The next one is an ox, and ox will fight back so it’s only getting harder from here.”

LA SALLE 9, ST. JOSEPH’S PREP 1
LA SALLE 4 2 0 3 – 9
ST. JOSEPH’S PREP 0 0 0 1 – 1
Goals-Assists: L – Zach Coar 4-1, Kyle Cullen 1-1, Danny Mallee 1-0, Mason Lazasz 1-0, Grant Pinto 1-0, Shane Osborne 1-0, Robert Foster 0-1, Mark Huntley 0-1; SJP – David Shew 1-0, Zach Snider 0-1.