Bishop Guertin boys lacrosse beats Pinkerton to win 3rd D1 title in a row (video)

EXETER - Chris Cameron knew the blueprint on how to beat his Bishop Guertin High School boys lacrosse team in Sunday's Division I championship game.

Pinkerton Academy was going to have to slow the game down by frustrating the Cardinals' offense with a zone defense while getting possessions off faceoff wins from Cole Frank.

But there was a third thing the Astros needed - Bishop Guertin to make mistakes - and for stretches in the first half, the Cardinals obliged.

"We were throwing the ball away," Cameron said. "It was so uncharacteristic, I almost took a timeout because we were rattled."

When top-seeded Bishop Guertin finally started to do the things it wanted in all three phases of the game, it took control. The Cardinals held No. 3 Pinkerton scoreless for more than 28 minutes while going on a 13-0 run to roll to a 15-6 victory and their third-straight title at Bill Ball Stadium in Exeter.

Connor Bouvier scored four goals, including one that tied the game at 3 after Pinkerton (15-6) had taken the lead early in the second quarter, and Tim Kiely had all three of his goals in a six-plus minute stretch before halftime to give Bishop Guertin (18-3) a 6-3 lead going into the break.

After Pinkerton's Cam Leeds was called for a slash in the final seconds of the first half, the Cardinals held the ball to secure possession to start the third quarter, avoiding a faceoff. Bouvier scored before the penalty expired to keep Bishop Guertin rolling.

"I think it was huge because we were able to capitalize on that," the senior said. "It just kept rolling from there. We’ve been talking about playing 48 minutes all year, but we certainly didn’t do that in the first quarter, so we had to capitalize on the rest of our opportunities and we did that in the second half."

Aiden Laurendeau added three goals and Jacob Caron had two in the win while Connor Guibord, Brady Dumont and Alex Dumont also had a goal apiece. Zach Connerty made three saves, all in the first half, as the Cardinals controlled possession in the second half, outshooting Pinkerton 24-7 after halftime.

"Ultimately, we needed to make plays on the offensive side of the ball and we couldn’t do that," Pinkerton coach Steve Gaudreau said. "They’ve got athletic guys who can play. There’s matchup problems all over the place. We couldn’t possess the ball and we couldn’t make enough offensive plays."

The Astros got two goals apiece from Michael Uber and Adam Scala while Ben Quintiliani and Frank had one each. Already without midfielder Matt Morrison, Pinkerton was also down senior middie Joey Gallo, who was hurt in the semifinal win over Exeter.

That made it even tougher for the Astros to matchup against the Cardinals' defense, led by Alex Dumont and Colin Roark.

"We knew, for them, they weren’t anywhere near as deep as us, but when they lose Morrison and Gallo, that stretches their depth even worse," Cameron said. "For the most part, we’ve been a conservative defense and make teams make mistakes. (Sunday) we were just going after it."

Bishop Guertin's defense held Pinkerton's Ryan Lynch and Matt Feole, who combined for 10 goals in the semifinals, to just one assist, from Feole.

"Every time they dodged, we had slides," Roark said. "We had poles on them the whole time. We were faceguarding. We just didn’t want them to get any breathing room."

Bouvier scored the game's first goal just 1:04 in, but a slash on Finn Moran gave Pinkerton a manup opportunity, and the Astros capitalized, getting a goal from Quintiliani to tie the game with 7:21 left in the first quarter. Frank won the ensuing faceoff and got the ball to Uber, who found the back of the net 12 seconds later for a 2-1 lead.

Laurendeau tied it a 2 less than two minutes later, but that's where it stood going into the second quarter, before Scala put Pinkerton back in front just 1:18 into the frame.

"They came out hard," Roark said. "I know we’re a pretty good conditioned team, even if they started hot, we’re just going to wear them down over time. Those early goals, they came out and we came out slow, but we picked it up. Once the wheel started moving, there was no stopping it."

Bouvier got it going, tying the game again 1:17 later, and Kiely put the Cardinals in front, converting a feed from Dumont in transition with 8:20 left in the half to make it 4-3. After Scala was flagged for being offsides, Kiely netted a manup goal just 2:06 later to make it 5-3, and then completed the hat trick with 2:03 to go in the half, scoring in transition again, this time off a pass from Laurendeau.

"We were turning the ball over a little bit and not converting in transition," Bouvier said. "And then shots started to fall and we were capitalizing on opportunities and I think that’s what did it."

The Cardinals continued the run into the third and fourth quarters, with Bouvier, Guibord and Caron scoring to make it 9-3 and force Pinkerton to take a timeout with 6:44 left in the quarter. Caron added another goal with 4:38 remaining in the third off an assist from Laurendeau and then he added back-to-back goals to make it 12-3 with 3:04 left in the quarter.

Bouvier added another goal before the end of the quarter and Brady and Alex Dumont each scored in the fourth to put the game into running time with 7:42 to play.

"In a game like that where we knew we could hold them, we just wanted to get that thing (the lead) to five," Cameron said. "They stayed in (the zone). At times we took bad shots, but we were so good defensively. I was proud of them."