Bedford boys lacrosse comes back to beat Pinkerton

BEDFORD - It takes a lot of things for a team to put together a lengthy winning streak, and one of those is luck.

The Bedford High School boys lacrosse team got just enough of that Wednesday and it helped the Bulldogs knocked off Pinkerton Academy 10-9. It was Bedford's 47th consecutive victory, the longest active streak in the nation.

Dan Colella led the way for Bedford (7-0) with five goals while Samuel Stanton had two goals and an assist and Patrick Simpson and Tyler Sullivan each had a goal and a helper.

But the biggest goal from the Bulldogs came off a fortunate bounce of the ball.

Down 9-8 with 1:19 to play, Bedford turned the ball over deep in Pinkerton's zone and the Astros looked like they might be able to run out the clock. Instead, Pinkerton threw the ball out of bounds, and Stanton picked it up, bringing the ball down field before firing a shot past goalie Cam Hayward to tie the game with 39.6 seconds to go.

The Astros (6-2) won the faceoff, working the ball all the way back to Hayward, but as Pinkerton advanced the ball, it was called offsides with 20.6 seconds remaining.

This time, Aaron Palys picked up the ball and raced down to the side of the goal. Palys tried to pass across the front of the goal to Colella, but Hayward got his stick on the ball, knocking it into the net to give Bedford a 10-9 lead with 10.6 seconds left. Bedford was then able to run out the clock.

"Sometimes, you get the good breaks, and in this game we did," Bedford coach Matt Guerard said. "We made mistakes. It was evident all over the field. Thankfully we were good enough to come out of it and take advantage of our opportunities."

Bedford goalie Matt Howe finished with 13 saves, including a somewhat miraculous one on Pinkerton's Evan Sweeney early in the fourth quarter.

The Astros were able to find Sweeney all alone in front of the goal, but instead of shooting quick, Sweeney faked twice and then fired a low shot that Howe managed to knock aside.

"I tried to stay with his stick and he put it low on me," How said. "I kept guessing high because he was faking high. Luckily, I just got a body part on it and made the save.

"We were joking with Aaron Palys in the locker room, that sometimes it's better to be lucky. He tried to feed it across the crease and it ended up being knocked down by the goalie. (Hayward) is a fantastic goalie, so you hate seeing something like that."

Pinkerton jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first quarter, but Colella scored three straight to give Bedford a 3-2 with 19 seconds left in the opening frame. But the Astros answered right back, tying it on a goal by Sean Delea with four seconds to go.

The teams went back and forth in the second, combining for nine goals. Neither team could get ahead by more than one, and the Astros were up 7-6 at halftime.

"I expected the first half to be exactly what it was, back-and-forth," Guerard said. "Nobody got any momentum. It was take advantage of opportunities and score goals, but the second half, we really didn't get much going offensively because we were losing groundball battles."

Jake Lisauskas gave Pinkerton a 9-7 lead with 1:27 left in the third quarter, but that would be the last goal the Astros would get. Lisauskas and Sweeney finished with three goals apiece, while Delea had a goal and an assist and Hayward made 16 saves.