UPPER DUBLIN – Improvement was the focus for both the Upper Dublin and Plymouth Whitemarsh boys lacrosse teams after their matchup Thursday afternoon. Where they differed was in the timeframes.
The host Cardinals, who scored the first six goals in their SOL American Conference contest and built an 11-1 lead on the Colonials before eventually earning an 11-5 victory, are a veteran side out to quickly sharpen its performance ahead of a visiting three-time defending PIAA-3A champ Radnor.
“With spring break, a lot of guys were away, we had to break off the rust Monday and Tuesday,” UD sophomore attack Nate Brown said. “But overall, it’s been OK, it’s not what we want to be at cause we have Radnor on Saturday and we can’t make those mistakes.”
PW coach Ryan Bonnani, meanwhile, is looking farther down the road early in his second season with the Colonials.
“What the kids are seeing is it stings with not getting the W, right – everybody wants to win but from a coach’s perspective I’m building a program,” Bonnani said. “I love PW, I’m very happy for the opportunity to be here. I was at a very good school, Notre Dame Prep in New Jersey, that just like Upper Dublin where the expectations were very, very high.”
“So coming here I’m very happy to build this program and carry over what I had over there in a sense of some of what we were instilling but most importantly this is a marathon for us, it’s not a sprint.”
Brown paced Upper Dublin with a hat trick while Cameron Osborne and Kyle Spirt both scored twice for the Cardinals (2-1, 1-0), which picked up its second straight win after falling to defending state 2A champ Marple Newtown in the season opener March 15. UD takes on host Radnor 11 a.m. Saturday.
“My teammates have just been really supportive throughout the season,” Brown said. “Me personally, I’ve been getting down on myself really easily and they keep my emotional side up. But with having this game, winning this and then being really hyped for Radnor, we’re going to have a great practice tomorrow and then we’ll be out there on Saturday.”
Jack Cooper put Plymouth Whitemarsh (1-3, 1-1) on the scoreboard with 1:01 remaining in the second quarter but Brown gave UD back the six-goal advantage when he rifled in a shot at 22.7 seconds and the hosts headed into the break leading 7-1.
“We have mostly good shooters but we try to shoot inside more often,” Brown said. “But having me, myself, my teammates Ben (Guagliardo) and Matt Shohen, they’ve been really key factors when we’re shooting but overall I think our shooting’s OK. We’re definitely still developing that aspect of our game but overall obviously we’re still getting better.”
The Cardinal collected the first four goals of the second half, Cole Pedroso’s strike at 5:11 extending the margin to 11-1.
Plymouth Whitemarsh posted the next goals, the last three in the four quarter, to make things a tad interesting but could not get any closer after Jack Cooper’s consecutive tallies made it 11-5 with 8:05 left.
“I’m proud of my guys today because we are taking small steps forward,” Bonnani said. “We are improving from last year. We are a young team, we are going to graduate some good seniors but we have a lot of very good sophomores and very good juniors and we’re still trying to figure out how to mix it all together.
“But compared to last year when we played them I think that we really, again, stepped up second half and really started to make strides to come back.”
PW lost to Upper Dublin 12-3 last March before going on to finish Bonnani’s first season at 8-10, a four-win improvement from 2022.
The Colonials visit Central Bucks South in an SOL non-conference game 6:45 p.m. Monday.
Osborne gave Upper Dublin a 1-0 lead 50 seconds into Thursday’s game with Shohen doubling the advantage at 9:07 in the first quarter. Brown scored his first 23 seconds later.
UD’s lead stayed 3-0 until Osborne found the back of the net at 11:12 in the second quarter. After a strike from Spirt at 9:58, then Guagliardo’s goal at 2:17 had the Cardinals up 6-0.
