Wissahickon clinches outright SOL American title
WHITEMARSH >> The Wissahickon boys lacrosse team made history Tuesday afternoon.
The Trojans beat Plymouth Whitemarsh, 17-5, to clinch the 2021 Suburban One League American Conference championship. It’s the program’s first outright league title since 2010 and its first undefeated run through league play since 1993.
“We have a lot of senior leadership and a lot of key role players that stepped up,” Wiss senior Jackson Intrieri said of what makes this team special. “We just play hard. We fight for the groundballs, make the extra pass, possess the ball, play team defense, communicate – the whole drill. It’s been really fun.”
On their way to a league title, the Trojans weren’t really challenged this season. The 12-goal win over Plymouth Whitemarsh was their closest SOL American game of the season. In their nine league games, they averaged 19.2 goals while allowing 2.8.
“We all just grew into our game,” Intrieri said. “Our chemistry has gotten better over the years. We mesh really well together. We play off each other really well and find the back of the net. Good team offense, good team defense. We’ve had a lot of guys step up this year, too, kids that weren’t even … playing varsity at all (before this season) as freshmen. We’ve had a lot of juniors step up, sophomores step up.”
The SOL American title is the second consecutive league championship for Wissahickon. In 2019, they finished in a three-way tie for first place with Upper Dublin and Springfield Montco. They clinched a share of the title with a 22-1 win over Quakertown Monday, but needed to beat PW to finish ahead of Upper Dublin, which Wiss beat 19-4 on May 4.
“It’s a lot better having it for ourselves,” Wiss senior EJ Schreiner said. “(In 2019) every team just beat each other. We were definitely the better team, Upper Dublin just slipped past us in overtime. We just earned it this year – better than other teams. We’ve been playing together since first grade. We just stuck together.”
“It’s much better winning it outright than sharing it,” Wiss coach Matt Conway said. “That was one of our goals – win the conference, then hopefully make a run at districts, then obviously states as well. This was the first goal, basically. It feels good to accomplish it.”
Wissahickon (12-4, 9-0 SOL American) left no doubt when it took the field at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School. The Trojans scored the first 10 goals of the game – including four straight from Kyle Lehman to turn a 2-0 lead to 6-0 – and led, 13-1, after 12 minutes. The lead grew to 15-1 at halftime before the back-and-forth second half concluded, 17-5.
“It’s a good combination of Jackson (Intrieri) and Matt Fritz at faceoff,” Conway said of the offensive success this season. “When you have that and it’s kind of like make-it-take-it, that’s big. That’s really big. It’s a combination of getting the ball, then when we get it the attack, in particular Jackson and Dean Wolfe and Kyle Lehman, they’re a pretty tough group. All three of those guys have over 30 goals, so it’s tough to matchup most of the time. Usually you put your best pole on one of them and you’re good, but with three guys that can all dodge and score, that’s huge. Then you have the midfielders that have been really good all year, too.”
Wolfe also scored four goals for Wissahickon while Nicholas Donofrio netted three. Intrieri had four assists while Lehman and Andrew Slackman each dished out two helpers.
CJ Petrakis led the Colonials (4-9, 4-6 SOL American) with three goals.
The Trojans return to action Thursday night when they host Central Bucks South at 7 p.m.
Wissahickon 17, Plymouth Whitemarsh 5
Wissahickon 13 2 0 2 – 17
Plymouth Whitemarsh 1 0 2 2 – 5
Goals: W: Jackson Intrieri, Kyle Lehman 4, Dean Wolfe 4, EJ Schreiner, Brody Meyers, Andrew Slackman, Jason Michaels, Nicholas Donofrio 3, Gavin Myers. PW: Justin Bainbridge, Jake Shaifer, CJ Petrakis.
