Early-season wakeup got Bishop Guertin ready for rematch in D1 boys lacrosse final

EXETER - There were 45 days between the two games the Bishop Guertin and Bedford high school boys lacrosse teams played this season.

For all but one of those days, Cardinals coach Chris Cameron had the Bulldogs on his mind.

How could he not? Certainly not after Bedford took Bishop Guertin to double overtime in their regular-season meeting on April 23, the closest any in-state opponent has come to beating the Cardinals since 2019.

"That game got our attention," Cameron said. "I was able to coach them and they constantly got better. The only time I stopped talking about Bedford was when we had to play Exeter in the semis at Exeter. You can’t overlook a really good team.

"I knew who it was going to be (in the championship game). We started doing things to get ready for Bedford."

That regular-season win was part of a four-game stretch that proved to be eye-opening for Bishop Guertin. The Cardinals had dropped their previous two games to out-of-state opponents, losing by three goals to St. John's Prep, of Danvers, Mass., and by one to Staples, of Westport, Conn.

The quality of both programs - St. John's won its fourth-straight MIAA Division I title last weekend, while Staples had won the Class L title in Connecticut the previous two seasons - and the fact Bishop Guertin led each game in the second half, had the players and coaches thinking they would be untouchable against in-state competition.

Then came the double-overtime win against Bedford and an 11-8 win over Exeter in which the Cardinals trailed at halftime.

"We had a mindset back then that no one could touch us," Cameron said. "We were beating St. John’s Prep, so we thought we were great. We’re beating Staples, so we thought we were great. They thought the rest of the state was going to roll over for us."

Once the Cardinals realized that wasn't going to be the case, they refocused on what had to be done to get the program's fourth-straight title, and record 13th overall.

"We put it behind us," Bishop Guertin junior Paulo Vazquez said. "We realized that we couldn’t have played much worse and they probably couldn’t have played much better. We focused on each game throughout, getting better as a team. We were battletested for this game."

Cameron's prognostication was correct, as the Bulldogs reached the Division I title game for the first time in program history. With the Cardinals on track to make their 19th-straight appearance in the final, the coaching staff had to come up with a plan to handle Bedford and it started with Vazquez.

The junior was 27 of 30 on faceoffs, not only helping to give Bishop Guertin the opportunity to control possession and tempo, but to also thwart any run that Bedford might have been able to go on throughout the game.

"When we started to get on runs, it was because we were getting possessions off rides," Bedford coach Drew Bourdeau said. "But when you have someone like (Vazquez), it’s hard to piece together the runs you need to win that game.

"The biggest thing is we were trying to make him tire himself out and just run around the field. We didn’t do a good job of shutting guys off, so there were times where maybe he’d run for 10 seconds, but then he’d get an easy outlet."

During the regular season, Bedford was able to use a combination of long poles against Vazquez to slow him down or get the ball on the ground long enough for someone else to get it.

"We were prepared," Cameron said. "Their faceoff kid, (Dylan) Ricco is going to be very good, but he’s a freshman. Paulo is one of the top 10 guys in the country in that class. They gave us problems with their poles, but we had a plan for that (Saturday). That gave him some help. He was our MVP. He is the heart and soul of our team."

Bedford wasn't the only team during the regular season to try to use a long pole against Vazquez, and all that experience went a long way in the championship.

"Throughout the whole season, I’ve gotten poled, and I think I’ve gotten better and learned from it each time," Vazquez said. "Coming into this game, we expected it right off the dot, and they did it. We just executed everything perfectly."