Pinkerton boys lacrosse hangs on to beat Bedford, advance to D1 title game

EXETER - For more than three quarters Wednesday, the Pinkerton Academy boys lacrosse team did all the things it needed to do in order to beat Bedford.

In the final seven minutes, the Astros did a number of things that should have led to a loss.

Up six goals early in the fourth quarter, No. 1 Pinkerton watched as No. 4 Bedford rallied for five goals, but the come back came up short and the Astros held on for an 8-7 win in the Division I semifinals at Bill Ball Stadium.

With the win, Pinkerton moves on to Saturday's title game, where it will face No. 2 Bishop Guertin for the fifth year in a row - and ninth time overall - at 7:30 p.m. in Exeter.

By then, the Astros (19-1) should have the finish against Bedford (12-7) behind them.

"Our youth showed in the second half of the fourth quarter," Pinkerton coach Brian O'Reilly said. "We had this pretty much under control until some people decided they just wanted to score a goal. Give all the credit to Bedford for coming down and scoring goals.

"Almost all of our turnovers came off bad shots. You don't do that at the end of the game. You work for a great shot. You've got the clock in your favor. It's a learning experience for us, and fortunately we were able to learn it because we won. By doing what we did, we should have lost."

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Ryan Auger led Pinkerton with four goals and an assist while Chris Valentine scored twice and Chad Teresky (assist) and Mason Drouin also scored. Thomas Sweeney added three assists and Alex Sturgess made six saves, perhaps none bigger than one with under a minute to play and the Astros holding an 8-6 lead.

But Bedford got the rebound off that stop and Kyle Fink scored the second of his two goals with 31.1 seconds remaining to make it a one-goal game. Pinkerton won the ensuing faceoff, took a timeout with 26.7 seconds left and was able to run out the clock.

"We played a phenomenal fourth quarter," Bedford coach Matt Guerard said. "Probably one of the best quarters of lacrosse you can play. Our defense played great all game long. That's a high-scoring offense, and to hold them to five goals at halftime, and a couple of goals in the second half, I thought the defense played awesome.

"Offensively, we didn't quite put things together until the fourth quarter. When you don't get anything going for 36 minutes, you're trailing the entire game and that's hard in a game like this."

Pinkerton got out to a 4-0 lead in the first quarter as the Astros were able to possess the ball for almost the entire opening 12 minutes while Bedford had two shots and four turnovers.

"We didn't really have the ball that much on offense and we relied on our defense in the first quarter," Guerard said. "Our game plan was to not allow any goals on the inside and the first four goals of the game came on the inside. We blundered a little bit in the first quarter, but tightened up the rest of the way."

Auger gave Pinkerton a 5-0 lead with 5:59 left in the first half, but goals by Bedford's Ryan Toscano (two goals) and Fink in the final three minutes made it 5-2 at halftime.

But any momentum the Bulldogs picked up didn't carry into the third quarter, as Pinkerton extended its lead back to five goals and went up 8-2 on another goal by Auger with 10:26 remaining in the game.

And then things start to shift Bedford's way, as bad shots and turnovers hurt the Astros. Brandon Howe scored with 6:43 left to make it 8-3 and Toscano cut the lead to four with his second goal with 5:08 remaining.

Pinkerton won the faceoff and was able to kill some of the clock, but Bedford got the ball back and a goal by Devin LaFrance made it 8-5 with 3:51 to go. A turnover after the ensuing faceoff led to a transition goal by Gannon Lowrie just 31 seconds later, making it a two-goal game.

"I think when you're trailing and you know the end of the season is coming in 12 minutes if you don't pick it up, there's a sense of urgency," Guerard said. "For us, we had to play with a sense of urgency in the fourth quarter."

Bedford won the faceoff after Lowrie's goal, but the Bulldogs couldn't find an opening against Pinkerton's defense. A penalty on the Astros' Ryan Albrecht with 1:03 left put Bedford a manup and Fink scored on the advantage, but Pinkerton was able to kill off the rest of the clock.

"There was no excuse, with an 8-2 lead with seven minutes left, for this to turn into a game," O'Reilly said. "That's our fault and fortunately we won. The football coach in me will put them on film and drill into their heads that you've got to play the game at different levels, depending on the school.

"Now we're where we need to be. We'll go at it Saturday night and see what's what."