La Salle follows lead of Hreshko, Huntley to top Manheim Township

SPRINGFIELD >> Once the juice started flowing, there was plenty to go around for La Salle.

A slow start against visiting Manheim Township got turned around in the second quarter before the Explorers kicked the gates open in the third quarter Saturday. It was a strong finish to a strong week, with La Salle picking up three victories and the team honoring its seniors the right way before heading into the final stretch.

Charlie Huntley’s big day offensively led the way as La Salle topped the Blue Streaks 15-6 to finish the week 3-0.

“It starts with getting after it in practice, scrapping every day and telling each other the team is going 3-0 for the week,” Explorers senior goalie Luke Hreshko said. “When you set that standard, you don’t want to accept anything less.”

Saturday’s win over the District 3 power Blue Streaks was the capper on a week that saw La Salle keep its hold atop the PCL, win some family bragging rights for its head coach and get the seniors something last year’s class never had the chance to experience. The Explorers beat Devon Prep on Tuesday in a battle of PCL unbeaten before using another strong second half to top Academy of the New Church on Thursday where La Salle head coach Rob Forster took on his brothers Jack, ANC’s head coach, and Kevin, a Lions assistant coach.

“We have another big stretch coming up as well, so we’re in the thick of our season where freshmen aren’t freshmen anymore and the seniors are pretty much coaching the team,” Forster said. “We relied on their voices a lot today and I thought they did a great job.”

Manheim Township went ahead 2-1 early on but in what would become a recurring trend, Huntley scored off a transition play to tie things up midway through the first quarter. Senior Mason Lasasz gave La Salle its first lead at 3-2 before the quarter break, Hrehsko made a couple of stops and senior Tim Mehlmann provided the spark early in the second quarter.

Mehlmann, the player chosen to wear Travis Manion’s No. 19 this season, powered in through Manheim Twp’s defense for a 4-2 lead 44 seconds into the second quarter to start a flow than became a tsunami of momentum in the second half.

“That’s what we like to call a ‘juice’ goal, it really got the sideline into it,” Forster said. “Him being a senior, that’s just a good, tough move to the goal line and it says a lot, especially on Senior Day.”

Huntley was a matchup nightmare for Manheim Twp, with the junior attackman scoring seven goals on the day and from pretty much every angle. Huntley followed Mehlmann’s goal with two consecutive scores with the second again coming through transition off a Blue Streaks turnover.

Forster said Huntley got his offense by reading the game well and it was the shot in the arm La Salle needed with Manheim Twp goalie Ty Moritzen playing exceptional in the first half. Moritzen had 10 saves in his two quarters of work and forced the Explorers to adapt offensively.

“Their goalie played awesome, we took some bad shots but he was tough,” Huntley said. “We had a good pep talk at halftime and focused on settling into our offense. Once we did that, we knew we were going to be able to take them to the net and that’s what we did in the third quarter.”

La Salle had a 7-4 lead at the half, but didn’t close the second quarter as strong as it would have liked. Thanks to a good halftime talk, like the one against ANC on Thursday, the offense came out ready to start burying chances and take advantage of what the defense was doing to slow down Manheim Twp.

Hreshko made seven saves on Saturday and his defensive unit had a strong all-around game. Huntley credited the midfielders on defense and in transition like Jack Pilling, Seth Michalak and Colin Wakefield for getting the ball up the field quickly off turnovers.

“Lacrosse is all about scoring, so on defense it’s whatever you can do to stop them,” Hreshko said. “Once you make the first save, you’re right back after it, your defense is woken up and ready to go and that lets you get after it.”

Huntley bagged three goals in a row to open the third quarter, the last assisted by Wakefield who rushed the ball up in transition after senior defenseman Paul Jennings forced a turnover.

“It was all our clearing middies, I had some finishes off their transitions,” Huntley said. “Other than that, I had some success dodging and step-down goals but our overall offense was the reason I was able to score that much today.

“As soon as we score goals, the juice is going and our offense feeds off each other. We always trust each other to make the right decisions.”

Hreshko said the seniors have taken it on themselves to help get the team on the right track at halftime the past couple games. The goalie said he thought of last year’s senior class, who didn’t get a chance to even play a game because of COVID-19, on Saturday and has tried to play for them this spring.

A good team needs everyone to fill their part to be successful and La Salle got that on Saturday. The faceoff unit, led by Stephen Davis on the X, was solid, the midfield was strong both ways, the defense got stops and the attack put chances away.

With the calendar officially in May, the Explorers know it’s time to start heading for their peak. It was a good week, but they know they can still reach for more.

“There’s absolutely another gear we can hit, we want to get better every day at practice,” Hreshko said. “It’s like climbing a ladder, you just take the next step and hopefully that carries us later into May and maybe to June.”

LA SALLE 15, MANHEIM TOWNSHIP 6
LA SALLE 3 4 6 2 – 15
MANHEIM TWP. 2 2 0 2 – 6
Goals-Assists; L – Charlie Huntley 7-0, Seth Michalak 3-1, Mason Lasasz 1-2, Tim Mehlmann 1-0, PJ Oppenheimer 1-0, Leyon Bracken 0-1, Harry Sweitzer 1-0, Jack Vandergrift 0-1, Andrew Kelly 0-1, Jack Pilling 0-2, Colin Wakefield 0-1; MT – Andrew Katch 2-0, Garrett Campagna 1-1, Bennett Palmer 1-0, Jake Laubach 1-0, Mason Lefever 1-0.
Saves: L – Luke Hreshko 7; MT – Ty Moritzen 10, Owen Hirsch 8.