Pinkerton boys lacrosse knocks off Bishop Guertin to capture D1 championship

EXETER - From one perspective Chris Valentine was a mess.

His hair was drenched in sweat. His left thumb, which he broke back in April was in a cast, had also been soaked through. He looked like he had been through the ringer.

But from his perspective, Valentine looked, and felt, like a million bucks. So comes the ebullient glow of victory.

Valentine had played the game of his life, scoring three goals, to pace the No. 2 Pinkerton Academy boys lacrosse team to an 11-9 win over rival No. 1 Bishop Guertin and its first Division I state title since 2015.

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“This is unbelievable,” Valentine said. “I got this freshman year and only played a little bit of it. I actually got to play the whole game. Scored three goals. It’s amazing. I broke my thumb the second game of the season. I was pretty bummed on that. I came back for the playoffs. I don’t know what to do right now.”

After falling short in the final to the Cardinals the last two years, the Astros (19-2) retook the throne on the back of a complete performance by the team up and down the field. Valentine’s hat trick was matched by three goals from sophomore Chad Teresky and two goals and an assist from Mason Drouin. The Astros never trailed in the game in handing the Cardinals (20-1) their first loss.

It was all Astros early as Pinkerton raced to a 6-2 halftime lead on the back of 46-percent shooting in the opening 24 minutes. On the defensive end, the Cardinals were shut down. Pinkerton forced the Cardinals out of their game in the opening two quarters, and when Guertin did get through Alex Sturgess was there.

The senior goalie turned aside 13 shots in the victory. In front of him the young Astros defense held North Carolina-bound senior Brian Cameron to just one goal. This all happened despite Bishop Guertin outshooting Pinkerton 41-28.

“We’ve had a great offense all year,” Pinkerton coach Brian O’Reilly said. “It really came down to defense. We had a young defense this year, and obviously everything goes through (Brian Cameron) and it was just a matter of matching up to him, sliding to him, fake sliding to him. We did a lot of different things.”

Guertin found it’s stride in the third quarter when the Cardinals piled up six goals in the quarter and made it a 9-8 game heading into the fourth. Sophomore Sean Cameron had both of his goals in the third. Senior attackman Sam Prunier had two goals as well for the Cardinals.

Goals from Teresky and junior middie Owen McCormack in the fourth quarter, just 29 seconds apart, gave the Astros the breathing room they needed down the stretch.

“In one game anything can happen, and they were the better team (Saturday),” Bishop Guertin coach Chris Cameron said. “It’s not like it was a fluke. We came at them. We made a run, showed our true character, and we had chances to take the lead. We had multiple chances to take the lead. I think if could have taken the lead it would have changed things.”

The loss ended Guertin’s quest for its first undefeated season and a big reason for that was due to the success of Gennaro Marra.

Marra, Pinkerton’s junior faceoff specialist, was locked in from the start. His dominance at the faceoff X (63.6 win percentage) allowed the Astros to control possession and keep Guertin from letting its offense get in a flow.

Marra’s faceoff dominance helped lead to Pinkerton’s massive 29-14 advantage in groundballs.

“Just coming into it I wanted to win every battle,” Marra said. “Really get those balls up for grabs and just compete. When I’m out here I just get on my knee and do my thing.”

In the second half Guertin adjusted its faceoff strategy to get more physical with Marra and allow the wings to get more involved. While it worked sparingly, Marra couldn’t be shaken.

“You’re not getting physical with Gennaro,” O’Reilly said. “He’s a starting varsity football player. He’s a starting varsity hockey player. He’s a starting varsity lacrosse player. You are not going to outtough him. He is a throwback athlete like we used to get all the time in high school that we don’t anymore. He thrives on that kind of situation.”