Pinkerton boys lacrosse cruises past Souhegan for sixth straight win

AMHERST - After a slow start the last time out, the Pinkerton Academy boys lacrosse team was looking to hit the field running Thursday night against Souhegan.

For the first four minutes of the game, the Astros were doing a little too much running, as the teams opened up with a pair of goals apiece.

But from there, Pinkerton's defense settled in, allowing two goals over the game's final 44 minutes, and the offense found ways to beat the Sabers' defense, as the Astros rolled to a 14-4 win in Division I action.

Chad Teresky led the offense, scoring five goals and recording four assists, while Ryan Auger added three goals and four assists for Pinkerton (6-0), which faces two tough home games back-to-back against Medfield (Mass.) on Sunday and Bishop Guertin on Monday. After falling behind in the first half of a win against Bedford on Tuesday, Astros coach Brian O'Reilly liked the way his team started against Souhegan (3-4).

"We wanted to hit the field running, which we did," O'Reilly said. "In fact, it was too much running, back and forth. Once we settled down, I thought we did a really good job, even though we didn’t score in the second quarter, I still liked the great defense for us. We had a couple of nice chances, we just missed our opportunities. We played well. I thought we rode the ball well, something I’ve been waiting for all year long. And we cleared the ball well."

Josh McCormack added three goals and an assist for the Astors while Mason Drouin had a goal and an assist and Hunter Drouin had three assists. Shawn Tewksbury also had a goal, Alex Sturgess made eight saves and Pinkerton was 18 of 22 on faceoffs, led by Gennaro Marra.

"Gennaro is just cleaning up on faceoffs," O'Reilly said. "He’s an athlete and a half. You can’t not only your lacrosse midfielder, you’ve got your hockey wingman, and your starting running back on the varsity football team. He’s just an athlete and knows what to do with the ball."

Souhegan got a goal and two assists from Nick Jordan while Tyler Hall, Riley Lawhorn and Connor Holland had a goal apiece. John Lohnes made five saves for the Sabers, who were able to answer Pinkerton's first two goals of the game, but didn't score again until 8:04 remained in the game.

"There’s some good things and some bad things," Souhegan coach Keith Bertrand said. "Defensively, I thought we played well in spots. Offensively, we weren’t as crisp, and in between the boxes, we were turning the ball over again. I don’t think we played as well (Thursday) as we did (Monday) against Bishop Guertin."

Despite that, the halftime score was the same for the Sabers, as they trailed Pinkerton 6-2 at the break. All of the scoring came in the first quarter, with the Astros going on a 4-0 run over the final nine minutes of the first to take the lead.

Mason Drouin finally got Pinkerton going again 36 seconds into the third quarter to make it 7-2, and after Souhegan won the ensuing faceoff, Sturgess came up with a save and started the Astros running. Teresky, Auger and McCormack each added a goal over a span of 1:14 to give Pinkerton a 10-2 lead with 8:08 left in the third.

Teresky tacked on two more goals before the end of the quarter to make it 12-2 and Tewksbury scored 42 seconds into the fourth to make it an 11-goal lead. McCormack added another to get the game into running time, but Jordan's goal got Pinkerton's lead back down under 12 for the final eight-plus minutes.

So far this year, Pinkerton is allowing an average of 4.7 goals per game, and hasn't allowed more than eight during its 6-0 start.

"Once Alex is zoned in, they were still getting shots off, but they were still saves for Alex," O'Reilly said. "We didn’t stop them from shooting, we just made the saves after that. We might have a challenge coming up this weekend and Monday. We’ll see what (the defense) looks like. If it’s not good, then we’ll make whatever adjustments we need to make. Right now, we’ll see what we’ve got."