Derryfield boys lacrosse jumps on Winnacunnet early to get back to D2 final

NASHUA – It’s another year and another trip to the Division II championship game for the defending-champion Derryfield School boys lacrosse team.

The second-seeded Cougars stamped their latest ticket to the title game when they jumped out fast against No. 6 Winnacunnet on their way to a 13-4 victory in the D2 semifinals inside a steamy Stellos Stadium on Wednesday.

“We had a feeling they’d come out in zone, we prepared for it and the guys did a nice job executing what we wanted to do,” Derryfield coach Chris Hettler said. “I love the fact that our scoring was pretty distributed. A lot of guys got on the scoreboard.”

Ryan Maxwell, Chili Cabot and R.J. Proulx each scored three goals for Derryfield, while goalie Parker Lebiedz didn’t give Winnacunnet (13-6) a chance by making 17 saves.

“Once we got that lead, it was about being smart,” Hettler said. “I was impressed with how our defense played (Wednesday). Parker played great, we thought we had a great game plan coming in and they executed. They’ve been doing a great job.”

Derryfield (17-2) will be making its seventh championship game appearance in eight seasons when it returns to Stellos Stadium on Saturday to face off against top-seeded Portsmouth (19-0) in a rematch of last year’s championship game, which the Cougars won in overtime, 12-11.

The Clippers advanced with a 16-8 victory over Timberlane (15-4) in Wednesday’s nightcap.

“We’ve come together great and we keep getting better every game we play and every practice,”  Derryfield's Michael Grunbeck said. “I think we’ve got a great chance on Saturday.”

Cabot fed Maxwell to open the game’s scoring and then added two of his own goals to give the Cougars a 3-0 lead entering the second quarter.

The game continued to unravel for Winnacunnet midway through the second quarter, after Tim Kollmorgan scored for the Warriors. Cooper Ketchum, Maxwell, Cabot and John Kramer all scored in the final 6:30 in the second quarter to give Derryfield a 7-2 halftime lead.

Winnacunnet was coming off a 5-3 win over No. 3 Windham in the quarterfinals.

“(Lebiedz) made some great saves early and that allowed them to settle in,” Winnacunnet coach Pat Snow said. “They’re a pretty high-powered offense, and we just dug ourselves into too deep of a hole.”

Grunbeck and his teammates were anxious to set the pace early and squash any confidence Winnacunnet would have coming off its upset win over Windham.

“We knew they were going to come out and think they had it, they beat a No. 3 seed and they’d be excited," Grunbeck said. “We knew we had to come out and match their intensity, set the tone early and that’s what we did.”

Now it’s onto the fifth championship game matchup between Derryfield and Portsmouth. The Cougars won in 2017 and 2018, part of four titles in a row for Derryfield. Portsmouth ended that run in 2021 by beating the Cougars in the semifinal before the Clippers won back-to-back titles in 2021-22.

The Clippers have won six of the past seven meetings between the teams, with the only loss coming in last June’s title game. Portsmouth won this year’s regular-season matchup, 10-9.

“It never gets old to go back to a championship game and it’s a lot of fun,” Hettler said.