It was just your typical game between Portsmouth, Derryfield boys lacrosse teams (video)

MANCHESTER - Trevor Sifferlen felt like he needed to be the one to score for the Portsmouth High School boys lacrosse team.

If that meant laying out and scoring while falling to the ground, then so be it.

“I wanted to bring (the defender) down to X, and then I realized, I had him at the wing,” Sifferlen said. “I took the underside and just finished it. I was diving."

Sifferlen danced around the Derryfield School defender, and as another closed in, he dove while taking a low shot that found the back of the net to give the Clippers a 7-6 lead with 68 seconds left in Wednesday's Division II game.

“I knew we needed to score because it was tied, and Derryfield is our biggest rival,” Sifferlen added, “and I needed to step up.”

Portsmouth made that goal hold up over the final minute to win for the fourth time in the last five meetings between the two teams, including the last two D2 championship games. While the series has been slanted the Clippers' way the last five-plus years, that win was just one more example of how close these two teams have been over the last decade or so.

In the 10 seasons since Derryfield moved up to D2 in 2015 - with there being no season in 2020 - these two programs have played 19 games, including Portsmouth's win on Wednesday. Even with a loss in that game, the Cougars still hold an edge, 10-9, in the series.

Eight of those games have come in the postseason, with six of them being championship games, and what do you know, they've split those games, 3-3 in the D2 final and 4-4 overall.

Of those 19 games, nine of them have been decided by one goal, including the last three and six of the last seven. Two of those were championship games that went to overtime, with Derryfield winning in 2023 and Portsmouth last season.

Scoring differential is, well, not much different either, although the Cougars have averaged 8.5 goals per game while the Clippers sit at 7.6. But those totals include Derryfield regular-season wins by a count of 16-5 in 2016 and 10-1 in 2017, and that year, the teams ended up meeting for the first time in the final.

“The coaching staffs know each other so well, the kids know each other so well,” Derryfield coach Chris Hettler said. “It’s just executing the little things. That’s what we talked about after the game. We can be there win the end with these guys, but we have to push ourselves in practice to get better to do the little things.”

With the teams having met in the playoffs in all but two of those 10 seasons, the assumption is that somewhere down the road this year, they'll see each other again.

“I anticipated that we’ll see them again somewhere down the path,” Portsmouth coach Chad Vischer said. “And hopefully this is something we can build on before then.”