Depth too much as Bishop Guertin boys lacrosse wears down Souhegan

AMHERST - If any members of the Bishop Guertin High School boys lacrosse team had nightmares of the ball hitting metal, they had good reason Monday night.

The Cardinals' shots found more pipe than coach Chris Cameron can ever remember, specifically during a lengthy possession at the start of the second half.

Over the first five minutes of the third quarter, Bishop Guertin took 11 shots, with none finding the back of the net. But while Souhegan had hung with the Cardinals throughout the first half, cracks started to form in the Sabers' defense during that stretch.

Finally, after Souhegan took a penalty with just under seven minutes left in the quarter, the dam broke, as Bishop Guertin seven goals in the final six-plus minutes of third on the way to a 15-4 win over the Sabers in Division I action.

"I’ve been in games where we hit a lot of pipes, but I think we hit nine (total)," Cameron said. "Their goalie was making a lot of saves, keeping them in it. I just think we wore them down. We ran three middie lines at them. We were making saves and getting turnovers and turning them into transition, but we didn’t convert a lot of them until the third quarter."

After the Cardinals (6-0) jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first quarter, Souhegan (3-3) played Bishop Guertin even in the second, going into halftime down 6-2. But with the Sabers unable to regain possession, a lot of the momentum started to turn.

"We held them off the scoreboard in the second half for about five minutes," Souhegan coach Keith Bertand said. "They hit some pipes, the defense was playing phenomenally well, and then we go man-down and they got one.

"They have the ball for more than five minutes and they can’t get one (goal), you can’t ask your defense to do more than that. That’s kind of where it turned. We took a timeout and refocused them, played hard the rest of the quarter, but we don’t have the depth."

Sean Cameron had five goals for the Cardinals, while Brian Cameron had four goals and six assists, as Souhegan tried to double team the Bishop Guertin senior whenever he came out from behind the cage.

"They were sending an early slide and I think we started making them pay for that," Chris Cameron said. "You can’t slide to every single one. Our ball movement was great. Sometimes Brian would draw two (defenders), we’d go around and he’d get it back, and they couldn’t send the second one a second time. We had really balanced scoring."

Sam Prunier added two goals and an assist and Drew Hailey also scored twice while Brennan McInnis had a goal and two assists. Nate Binette also scored for Bishop Guertin and Cam Fagan and Kyle Fisher each had an assist, while Luke Romanek, Zac Keenan, Jack Johansen and Steve Bouchard combined to win 20 of 22 faceoffs.

Souhegan got two goals from Riley Lawhorn while Tyler Hall and Nick Garcia had a goal each. Julian Whittier and Austin Clefford each had an assist and John Lohnes made 12 saves.