High School Sports |

BOYS LACROSSE: Upper Dublin defense on lockdown, Sowers starting again at Wissahickon

LOWER GWYNEDD — Lacrosse can be a high-scoring sport, but there’s always value in a good defense.

From a statistical standpoint, the Upper Dublin boys’ lacrosse team has one of the stingiest defenses around and it makes sense given the experience the Cardinals have on the back end. With a unit anchored by seniors and juniors, UD’s defense has been in top form and kept it going Saturday morning against rival Wissahickon.

The Cardinals downed the host Trojans 13-3, their seventh straight win, to stay unbeaten in the SOL American.

“We brought everyone back except for our goalie,” junior long-stick defensive mid Matthew Miller said. “It helps that we all have that communication from last year and nothing has changed.”

UD opened the season 2-2, dropping games to defending PIAA 2A champion Marple Newtown 12-6 and defending 3A champ Radnor 11-5. In between those losses, they picked up a good 12-8 win over Pennridge, the last team without a loss in the SOL National table.

Aside from those three games, no opponent has scored more than five goals against Upper Dublin’s defense. The Cardinals (9-2, 8-0 conference) have allowed just 44 goals on the season, although some of the team’s top defenders aren’t resting on prior results.

With a game against undefeated Downingtown East, the current top seed in the District 1-3A rankings, District 3 power Manheim Township and usual District 1 contender Springfield Delco among their final six games, the Cards defenders will be put to the test before the playoffs.

“It’s an all-around team effort,” senior short-stick defensive mid Chris Kohlbrenner said. “It starts with our attack and midfield, they do a really good job pressuring on the clear. Will Hoffman on the faceoff circle, we’ve been winning a lot of faceoffs recently, so we haven’t been playing much defense which keeps our legs fresh.

“We just have dogs all around on defense and depth to go with it.”

Junior Parish Albright, the goalie, is the only new cog in the unit. Miller said Albright fit right in with the defense and he’s already got three shutout wins this season.

Kohlbrenner, Miller and senior Marco DeBernardo, also a short-stick defender, make up the starting trio of defensive mids. The poles in the back are, by comparison, the young guys on defense with juniors Mario Cummings and Dom Paone flanking senior Josh Sajda.

“I think we have a lot of trust in each other,” Sajda said. “That goes both on and off the field.”

Kohlbrenner said the entire defensive unit is a mixture of skills and each individual guy has their own specific strengths. Some are better with stick skills, a few may be quicker than others and some are more physical.

Put them all together and whatever one player may not be as strong at is likely covered by another.

“We really work to maximize what our strengths are and minimize what our weaknesses are,” Kohlbrenner said. “We use that really well as a unit.”

“We really know how to adapt together,” Miller added. “If one person makes a mistake, we have their back and later in the game, they’ll have ours.”

The Cardinals saw those early games against Radnor and Marple Newtown as valuable. There were moments they were able to hang with two of the best teams in the state but others where their weaknesses were exposed.

There’s an aggression to the UD defense, something the group has embraced throughout the season.

“We started out a little more conservative but once we realized how strong we are, we were able to press out more and be more aggressive,” Sajda said.

The defense again wasn’t overly busy on Saturday, with UD jumping on the Trojans (10-3, 6-2) early then extending that lead out so the second half was played with a running clock. Matt Shohen had four goals, Kyle Spirt had two goals and two assists, Al Eby had a pair of goals and Ben Guagliardo had a goal and two assists to pace Upper Dublin’s offense.

While UD’s defense has been able to hold opponents in check, the Cardinals attack has been scoring goals at a high level all season. With plenty of experience on that end of the field and in the offensive midfield, UD is eyeing a prolonged playoff stay and the two units make a point of going at each other in practices.

“We all hold each other accountable,” Sajda said. “It starts with the captains, top down, just making sure everyone is pressing to the same end.”

Sowers Starting Anew at Wissahickon

Dave Sowers was on the fence about starting over again.

He had successful spells at Hatboro-Horsham then at Upper Dublin, stepping down as the lacrosse coach at UD following the 2018 season, and had spent the last two years at Harriton. The travel to Harriton had been starting to add up and when the Wissahickon job opened, it seemed like a good fit only Sowers wasn’t sure.

A talk with his son Michael, a star at Upper Dublin, Princeton and Duke now playing in the Premier Lacrosse League, gave him the direction he needed.

“He said, ‘Dad, it’s what you do,’” Sowers said after facing his former Cardinals program on Saturday. “He said ‘you build programs. It’s what you’re good at.’

“We have a great feeder program, we just have to get it all together.”

Sowers took over a Trojans program that had won the last three SOL American titles but had also graduated more than a dozen seniors. He started five freshmen on Saturday and even his seniors this year don’t have many varsity minutes to their names, so this is a work in progress.

It’s nothing he hasn’t taken on before.

“They’ve heard everything about the great class that just went through, we’ve been saying the only ones who believe we can win are the ones in this locker room,” Sowers said. “That’s what I’m proud of, that they’ve bought into that brotherhood. Nobody’s going to help us so we better come together.”