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Lacrosse Finals: Astros dethrone 5-time defending champ BG

Sunday, June, 14 By Mac Cerullo
Staff writer

EXETER – It's been a long time coming, but the Astros are finally back on top.

The Pinkerton boys lacrosse team beat Bishop Guertin 9-7 in Saturday night's Division 1 state championship game, denying the Cardinals their sixth-straight title while winning the program's 10th title overall, and it's first since 2006.

The game was close throughout, with the two teams knotted at 2-2 going into halftime and then 5-5 going into the fourth quarter. When it came time to win the game, Pinkerton coach Brian O'Reilly had a simple message for his players.

"Going into the fourth quarter, I said to them 'if you knew on day one this year, with the freshman and sophomores that we had, that you were going to be in the championship game in the fourth quarter tied and all you had to do was play the best 12 minutes of your life, would you take that?'" O'Reilly said. "There are no moral victories at Pinkerton, there are none. We don't do that here at this school. Either we win, or this would be a crushing defeat, so I left it to the kids."

His kids responded.

Coming out of the break, Pinkerton seized possession of the ball and goal a quick goal from Jack Hanaway to take the lead. Drew Strople followed that up with a goal to extend the lead to 7-5, and after the came back with a goal of its own to cut the lead to one, the Astros delivered the knockout blow via two goals from Jack Dattilo. 

BG got one last goal with under a minute to play to make things interesting, but Pinkerton won the ensuing faceoff, and then all they had to do was keep the ball away, and when the horn finally sounded, the exuberant Astros poured onto the field, celebrating not only their championship, but their final triumph over their longtime nemesis.

"To play with these guys since youth and getting embarrassed by them earlier in the season, losing to them numerous times in the championship, to finally stick it to them senior year feels really good," said senior goalie Nick Richard, who had eight saves on the day.

BG has long served as something of a bugaboo for Pinkerton, who had lost to the Cardinals in each of the last two championship games and then in the semifinals the year before that. In fact, BG hadn't lost to any New Hampshire opponent since 2013, but after the game O'Reilly said he always expects his teams to compete, and the difference this time was that his players did too.

"We knew it was possible, teams fear BG but we don't," Billetter said. "We're not afraid of them, we're not afraid to kick it to them. Young guys have stepped up all year and just grown up, we had freshmen playing like seniors."