Cullen’s stylish trip helps Radnor jump past Mt. Lebanon
MECHANICSBURG — Pat Cullen’s mostly detached right sleeve and his head-over-heels tumble over the bench at John H. Frederick Field aren’t related. At least not directly.
The Radnor faceoff guy’s creative tailoring started in the Conestoga game during the regular season. So much of the sleeve’s seam is open that Cullen has a trip planned Monday to a Radnor sewing class to see if someone can mend it.
“One of the refs came up to me today and said, ‘I’m not going to say anything today, but it should be fixed by the next game,’” Cullen said.
His acrobatics more tangibly influenced Saturday’s 13-4 win over Mount Lebanon in the PIAA Class 3A quarterfinals. For his sixth faceoff win of the second quarter, Cullen and defender Joe Gibbons vied for a groundball. With a timeout being whistled, Gibbons provided an extra push that dumped Cullen up and over a bench precariously close on the sideline. All that was missing was the cartoon sound effect.
“We’re bumping each other and hitting each other back and forth, and my momentum just carried me across the sideline, and that bench was pretty close,” Cullen said. “And I kind of tried to jump and maneuver it but ended up looking like I flailed over it. It was exciting to get back and we all had a positive energy about it, and it kind of set the tone for the rest of the game.”
John Austen double poster and in. 9-2 Radnor pic.twitter.com/scToFa9Cgr
— Matthew De George (@sportsdoctormd) June 1, 2019
“He’s one of the most valuable players on the team,” said defender Grant Pierce, who immediately stepped in to confront Gibbons. “He’s one of the toughest kids I’ve ever met, if not the toughest kid I’ve ever met in my life. And I didn’t think Pat was going to get hurt, but I was just hoping it wasn’t intentional.”
Given the Blue Devils’ struggles to stop the uninfuriated Raiders, the choice to rile them up was puzzling. Four more goals followed, part of a 9-0 run accompanied by a Mount Lebanon drought of nearly 23 minutes, to put the game out of reach and book Radnor (18-6) a Central League states semis date with Conestoga Tuesday.
Cullen was 12-for-20 on draws, and his second-quarter run powered five Radnor goals in 2:01 to break open a tie game. All seven Radnor goals in the frame were assisted.
The main creative axis centered on Jackson Birtwistle and Drew Brown. The run started with a sublime pass from Brown to Birtwistle at the back post, the latter needing only to bunt the ball home. Birtwistle put the run into high gear by taking on three defenders and hitting a skip pass to John Austen. And Birtwistle set up Brown in the third on a back-post dime that passed by four Mount Lebanon defenders.
“Jackson is such a threat with the ball in his stick — he’s a threat without the ball in his stick but primarily with the ball in his stick — to score or feed or dodge or shoot from outside,” Brown said. “I think offenses are really, really quick to slide to him, and that helps guys like me and John and pretty much the entire team once he has the ball on his stick.”
Damien Raimondo to Jaden Goldstein man up. That’s 4 goals in 65 seconds for Radnor. Timeout Lebo. 9:55 left 2Q, 6-2 @RadnorLacrosse pic.twitter.com/X3XJ3WnJb6
— Matthew De George (@sportsdoctormd) June 1, 2019
The effect of the offensive flow was devastating. Birtwistle scored three goals and four assists. Brown added two and four. Austen tallied a hat trick, and Jack Dooley and Jaden Goldstein scored twice each.
Most of Mount Lebanon’s offense came from John Sramac, who scored three times and added an assist. His goal 29 seconds into the second quarter had the Blue Devils on level terms, but they wouldn’t score again until 45 seconds remained in the third, Sramac again. In the meantime, Archer Darrach paved the way to six saves in goal, gobbling up Mount Lebanon’s long-range efforts.
In the face of a roll like that, the Blue Devils were powerless to stop the momentum.
“We have the greatest brotherhood I could ever ask for here,” Cullen said. “When we get clicking and get goal after goal, it just excites us all and we get all the momentum behind us. It’s amazing to be a part of.”
