Bishop Guertin boys lacrosse rolls past Pinkerton

NASHUA – Chris Cameron thought his Bishop Guertin High School boys lacrosse team was peaking at the right time.

After Monday’s 15-4 win over Pinkerton Academy, the Cardinals couldn’t get much higher.

Bishop Guertin played a strong first half, but it wasn’t until the third quarter, when the Cardinals scored the first four goals of the second half to take a 9-1 lead over the Astros, that they started showed their strength.

“They took our best shot,” Cameron said. “We recently started hitting our stride. They’re a young team, but they’ve been playing with passion and playing with heart, and they did (Monday). I just think we wore them down a little bit.”

Casey Burnett scored three goals and had three assists for Bishop Guertin (9-1 in Division I, 13-2 overall) while John Miller and Luke Roever had two goals and two assists each. Colin Delea made eight saves in goal and John Karanasios and Tom Hurley both added two goals.

Pinkerton (8-3, 10-4) got a goal apiece from Evan Sweeney, Jack Hanaway, Dom Corsetto (assist) and J.D. Dudek. Pearce Connal made 10 saves, and along with Brett Connal, was mentioned by Astros coach Brian O’Reilly as two of the lone bright spots for Pinkerton.

“I thought (Pearce Connal) played well, and I thought his brother (Brett) played really well on Paul Spinney,” O’Reilly said. “They did a nice job. We need to get some other situations cleared up. You give up 15 goals and you figure you’ve got to work on goaltending, but I thought my goaltending was really good. So giving up 15 goals when you’re goaltender is really good, that’s disturbing.”

After beating Hanover and handing Londonderry its first loss last week, O’Reilly thought his team was prepared for the Cardinals athleticism.

“I thought we had gotten to that point where we were ready to run with them, but we’re not,” he said. “We did for a period of time. First quarter, even the first half was OK, but third quarter, it got away from us.”

Bishop Gueritn got out to a 3-0 lead in the first quarter thanks to its ability to go from defense to offense faster than Cameron had seen the Cardinals transition all season.

“I was impressed with how our defense handled the ball,” he said. “Not only did we take it away, but we went from defense to offense at a high college level. I thought that was the difference.

“We just kept giving ourselves possession after possession. It started with our defense. Usually, we face off at 80 percent (success); we were maybe 60 or 70 percent. That advantage wasn’t there. We got real aggressive.”

Bishop Guertin led by four at halftime, but the Cardinals’ coach felt like the lead could have been even bigger.

“First half, we left a lot of goals out there,” he said. “At 5-1, I felt like it was a 10-1 game. Their goalie played well.

“I said ‘you’re letting them hang around.’ The next thing you know, they get two goals and its 5-3, and they start believing in themselves. We needed to come out in that third quarter and really put them away. I don’t think they ever went away, but I just think we wore them out.”

The Cardinals got goals from Colin Swanson and Burnett in the first 2:29 of the third quarter to make it a 7-1 game, and Karanasios and Burnett scored 50 seconds apart to put BG up 9-1 with 6:07 left in the third.

Pinkerton answered with a goal by Hanaway just 19 seconds later, but the Cardinals tacked on two more to make it 11-2. The Astros cut the lead back to seven before the end of the third, but they’d get no closer.

The Astros finish out the regular season with home games against Salem (2-9) and Concord (2-10) before hosting Cape Elizabeth, Maine, to finish the regular season on May 23. Bishop Guertin will host Exeter (9-3) and play at Londonderry (10-1) before wrapping up its schedule against Duxbury, Mass., also on May 23.