South Hadley boys lacrosse rallies to edge Longmeadow in closing seconds
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LONGMEADOW - It doesn't take much for the South Hadley-Longmeadow boys lacrosse rivalry to get stoked up.
But Thursday afternoon's game between the last two western Massachusetts champions will be remembered by both teams for the rest of the season.
The Tigers reeled off five of the final six goals to rally for a thrilling 14-13 victory in a rematch of the last two sectional title games.
"This team has been together all season, there is no quit," South Hadley coach Matt Benoit said. "We've dealt with adversity, dealt with injuries, and they keep coming back. The guys rally around each other, and that's what we're all about."
Chris Menard scored his fifth goal of the game with eight seconds remaining. He found the ball loose in front of the net and fired it past goalie David Walen (13 saves).
"I knew there wasn't much time left, but I saw the ball on the ground and knew I had to finish," said Menard. "I put it hard on the net and put it through."
The Tigers (10-2, 4-2 Valley Wheel) erased a 13-11 deficit in the final two minutes. Luke DiLisio scored with 1:24 left to cut the lead to one. Then with 41 seconds left, Menard (two assists) found a cutting Zak Guenther for the equalizer.
"They're very solid defensively, one of the best teams in western Mass.," said Guenther. "I feel once the fourth quarter came, we made a lot smarter decisions and got better shots."
For Menard, who helped defeat the Lancers in last fall's western Mass. field hockey championship, the win proved extra satisfying.
"It felt great beating them," said Menard. "The situation with field hockey became interesting with Longmeadow. It's great to be able to prove we're good athletes, and we need to beat them to show that."
DiLisio had two goals and four assists, while Evan Marcus scored three times with one assist. Matt Crotty, Ryan Dickinson and Andrew Pettengill added a goal apiece.
South Hadley would not have completed the comeback without the work of senior Crotty, who was excellent on faceoffs late in the fourth quarter.
"We have multiple faceoff guys for a reason, when one is on a streak we keep them in there," said Benoit. "Earlier in the game, TJ Fitzell did a great job. But when Longmeadow adjusted to him, Matt went in and won three humongous faceoffs in a row."
Menard said, "TJ has stepped up as a freshman, and Matt in practice has worked consistently. Today showed (Crotty's) hard work, and after he won those faceoffs, we could work it forward and get into our offense."
With 4:09 to play and Longmeadow up by three, defender Troy Johnson was flagged for a three-minute penalty for a check on John Mentor. But the Tigers scored three times while down a man to set up the victory.
"When we got the three-minute locked-in penalty, we didn't hold back at all and came out firing," said Guenther. "We started to punch in some goals, and we had some solid possessions to gut out the win."
The teams exchanged goals throughout much of the first half, but the Lancers put in the final three before intermission to take a 6-5 lead.
Longmeadow (9-4, 3-1) dominated the third quarter, outscoring the Tigers 5-1. But South Hadley responded with the next three tallies to start the fourth to make the score 11-9.
First-year goalie Justin Pontz made 11 saves, including several key stops to keep the Tigers within striking distance.
"Justin played one heck of a game today, he played out of his mind in a huge game," said Benoit. "This is one of the first outstanding starts of his career."
Pontz received help from a fairly inexperienced defense that allowed just two goals in the fourth.
"We've been growing all year as a defense," Benoit said "We lost our defensive rock in Dan Covington the first game of the season. Every single game the guys there have gotten better and today showed their work paying off."
The teams will meet again May 20 at 7 p.m. in South Hadley. Before that, the Tigers play Westford Academy, West Springfield and St. John's of Shrewsbury.
"We can never overlook a team, because in nine days anything can happen," said Menard. "We need to continue to play hard, play aggressively and need to play as a team."
Benoit said, "We get a little bit of momentum from this, but it only gets tougher. We've got a big week ahead of us, and we know Longmeadow will be pumped up for the next one, and we expect another great game."
Michael Wilkinson can be reached at mwilkinson@gazettenet.com.
