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SPRINGFIELD >> Upper Dublin coach Pat Lacon knows how good the La Salle College High School boys lacrosse program is. He was an assistant coach for the Explorers for seven seasons in the 2010s and helped guide the team to Philadelphia Catholic League, District 12 and state championships.
On Tuesday afternoon, Lacon was on the other side of a La Salle powerhouse. His Cardinals lost to the Explorers, 15-1, in the first round of the PIAA-3A state playoffs at La Salle College High School’s Flannery Field.
“A lot goes on behind the scenes that makes that team and that program very special,” Lacon said. “They make good players great and great players over the top. They do a really nice job there.”
It took (12-1) La Salle a few minutes to get on the scoreboard, but the PCL champions were in control all along. After a pair of empty possessions, Paul van Bastelaar put the ball in the net 3:11 into the first quarter. He moved from behind the net to the top, worked by his defender and ripped a shot to put the Explorers (21-1) ahead, 1-0.
“We started off a little shaky,” van Bastelaar, the PCL MVP, said. “We were over-complicating things, but we figured it out, we adjusted, we started hitting our shots and they started to fall.”
Max Wickersham and Logan Riggione added goals to make it 3-0 at the end of the first quarter. La Salle possessed the ball for almost the entire 12 minutes and the dominance showed on the scoreboard in the second quarter. van Bastelaar and Wickersham scored in the first 1:14 of the frame and a 6-0 quarter made it 9-0 at halftime.
“We definitely wore them down,” van Bastelaar said. “We have a sick faceoff guy (Stevie Davis), so we were having the ball the whole time. Our defense played insane. It’s easy to say we played well when they don’t even have the ball, but it’s all credit to our faceoff guy, our goalie (Matt Nelson) and our defense.”
van Bastelaar and Wickersham finished with four goals apiece and Declan Heilig added two.
La Salle will face (3-2) Manheim Township in the state quarterfinals Saturday at a site and time to be determined.
(1-5) Upper Dublin’s season ends with the loss. The Cardinals, who got their goal from Kyle Spirt, went 17-5 this season and won the Suburban One League American Conference championship. They earned their first state playoff berth since 2018.
“It was exciting,” Lacon said. “It’s a journey and every day adds another footstep in the direction that the boys want to get to. We have great leaders, we’ve got players, it’s been real special to be a part of it.”
La Salle 15, Upper Dublin 1
Upper Dublin 0 0 1 0 – 1
La Salle 3 6 4 2 – 15
Goals: UD: Kyle Spirt. LS: Paul van Bastelaar 4, Max Wickersham 4, Logan Riggione, Declan Heilig 2, Mike Rossi, Will Trymbiski, Tobi Zweiback, Jack Trymbiski.
