Playoff berth secured, Interboro no longer just part of the PAC

PROSPECT PARK — If Interboro lacrosse coach Tom Speer needed evidence that the status quo wasn’t working, the 2015 results provided it.

That year, the Bucs went 11-6, finishing the season on an 8-1 tear. But as the only Del Val school that sponsors lacrosse, the final District 1 rankings didn’t deem the Bucs worthy of postseason inclusion. Even when clearing the .500 hurdle with room to spare, the Bucs’ cobbled-together schedule would struggle to pass muster with the power-point math that governs districts.

Speer took over in 2016, and eventually an orthodox call was made: Interboro joined the Pioneer Athletic Conference, enduring the hour-long bus rides deep into Montgomery County, in the name of building a program.

“A lot of teams don’t know who we are,” attackman Mike Brown said Monday. “And we like going out there, especially on away games, and them asking, ‘How long was the bus ride?’ We go out there, 45-minute bus ride and we come out there and punch them in the mouth, start out the game hot and show them who Interboro lacrosse really is.”

This year, for the first time since 2012, Interboro lacrosse is a playoff team, the Bucs earning the sixth seed in the District 1 Class 2A tournament. Their reward is another trip to Montco, taking on third-seeded Springfield Twp. of the Suburban One League Wednesday night.

The berth is a culmination of a multi-year building process, first under coach Justin McQuaid and then Speer. It hasn’t always been easy, with the Bucs falling under .500 for two years before last year’s 9-9 campaign and a 10-7 regular season in 2019. But the process has been necessary.

“You have to go through hard times to get to good times,” faceoff man AJ Porreca said. “You have to have ups and downs to get where we want to be.”

Geography aside, the marriage of Interboro and the PAC makes sense. The Bucs often ventured far from home looking for games to fill their yearly quota of 18, while the sport is still growing in the suburbs farthest from Philadelphia, where opponents aren’t as plentiful and being cannon fodder for established programs isn’t all that useful.

Interboro has gone 4-5 in each of its PAC seasons. The league includes Spring-Ford, a perennial District 1 contender, and other much newer programs. But the 10-team league guarantees the Bucs don’t have to scrounge for games to get near 18 (they played 15 in 2017) and it offers more consistent competition than the hodgepodge of Delco teams the Bucs once hemmed into the slate.

It’s also a defining dose of adversity. Spending that long on a bus together forces team bonding. Challenges like Wednesday’s visit to Springfield-Montco – long trip, largely unknown opponent – are made less daunting when you do it once a week during the season.

“I think it definitely brings us closer,” Porreca said. “It gives us better chemistry as a team. We’re with each other every day, so it just brings us together and helps us on the field, too.”

“Last year, it was kind of a stepping stone in our future,” goalie Connor Evans said. “So last year, we knew our competition, knew who we could beat and knew who the tougher games were going to be. This year we went in with the same mentality and we played the same every game. But stuff just happens when you play good teams like Spring-Ford and Boyertown and things like that.”

The Bucs also endured more conventional instances of adversity this season. Johnny Scibello scored eight goals and eight assists in the first three games of the season before missing 12 due to injury. So others, primarily Brown, were forced to step up. Brown leads the team with 34 assists to go with 29 goals, trailing only Nick Mormando (52 goals, 66 points) for the team lead in both categories.

Scibello returned last week, scoring four times in a win over Delco Christian/Devon Prep that just about clinched a postseason spot, to bolster the Bucs for the postseason.

“I kind of had to switch my role from most of the time I was just scoring and I had Johnny feeding me,” Brown said. “Then I had to switch my role and had the ball in my stick more than I normally do. So it really helped me grow as a player, so now that he’s back, we have two guys with great vision on the field with me and him and it’s really helped us grow as a team and be more versatile.”

Interboro’s leaders see the playoff berth as the culmination of a multi-year building process. Winning a playoff game would be a step further, and the Bucs are excited to chase it.

“That would just push us from where we wanted to be to a whole ‘nother step,” Porreca said. “Our first goal was to make the playoffs. Now we just have to do something with it. This would be big.”

“We always like to look at ourselves as a blue-collar lacrosse team, so when we beat the good teams, it’s always a good feeling,” Evans said. “We know that we’re building a name for ourselves.”