Pioneers hope to begin and end season with win over Explorers; Radnor and Strath Haven to meet in girls' title game.
Conestoga coach Brian Samson says La Salle is a team that’s rolling, a team much different than the one his team beat back on March 21. La Salle coach Bill Leahy calls Conestoga simply the best team in Pennsylvania, a team that can come at opponents from so many different ways.
Samson and Leahy will find who’s right when Conestoga (24-1) meets La Salle (20-4) at 2 p.m. at HersheyPark Stadium in the first-ever boys’ PIAA state lacrosse championship. The boys’ game will follow a clash of Central League teams in the girls’ first-ever state title game between Radnor (24-1) and Strath Haven (21-4) at noon.
Conestoga enters the championship game red hot, beating Springfield (Delco) for the second time this season, 9-4, in the state semifinals, while La Salle could be even hotter, easily vanquishing Manheim Township in the other semifinal, 10-3, for the Explorers’ ninth-straight victory.
Conestoga is the only team in Pennsylvania that’s beaten the Explorers, 6-3, in the season opener for both teams. The Pioneers used a physical brand to get by the defending Keystone Cup champions, but this game could take on a a different look, a much different look.
“We’re both pretty darned good teams, it’s going to be a heck of a matchup,” Samson said. “I guess you don’t like to admit that you’re looking too far ahead, but when I saw La Salle was on the other end of the bracket, and that we didn’t have to get through them to get to this game, I had a feeling we would meet in the end.
“What they have that we might not have is the experience factor, with a lot of their guys returning from the team that won the Keystone Cup title. They have a little more big-game experience. But we have an idea of what they have. Beating them to start the season was a huge win for us and it really got us going. It was a great start and such a great win for our program. But this is different stage for us. They have the revenge factor going, and they’re absolutely rolling.”
Leahy, meanwhile, has no qualms with coming right out and saying what he thinks of Conestoga, “If we’re talking straight up this season, based on what teams have done and how they’ve played against us, I’d say Conestoga is the team to beat. They beat us to begin the year, and they’re a team that could attack you on so many different levels.”
A big key to this game for Conestoga could be the play of junior goaltender Peter Zonino, who stepped into the net fulltime midway into the season when senior Nick Shea went down with a broken right hand that he injured in practice. The two had split time before the injury.
Zonino will have a hefty load to defend against, with a La Salle team led by Randy Forster (Penn State) and midfielder Peter Schwartz (Harvard), plus a team that feels it has more history to make.
“This is a special group of seniors that would like nothing more than to make more history as the last team to win the Keystone Cup and the first team to ever win the PIAA state title,” Leahy said. “I wanted this group to see and play against the best high school lacrosse players in the country, and in a sense, it prepares them for games like this.”
Joseph Santoliquito covers high school sports for the Philadelphia Daily News and is a frequent contributor to MaxPreps.com.
