Proulx helps Derryfield boys lacrosse close out perfect regular season with win over Oyster River-Newmarket

DURHAM – RJ Proulx already switched the momentum for the Derryfield School boys lacrosse team when he scored as time expired at the end of the first quarter of Friday night’s regular-season high school finale against Oyster River-Newmarket.

The senior then continued with some more daggers to the Bobcats to end the third and to open the fourth.

Proulx scored with four-tenths of a second left in the third and scored nine seconds into the fourth to spearhead a 6-0 run that finished Derryfield’s 12-5 Division II victory over the Bobcats.

“I think those are some of my favorite shots,” Proulx said. “You can take a maybe shot in those scenarios. You can see it in college with the shot clock where they can just pull it up from anywhere. That's kind of my time to just go pull it and I’m lucky I had two that fell in.”

Proulx had five goals on the night with two assists and now has 53 goals and 29 assists on the season in helping lead Derryfield (17-0, No. 5 in the MerchSquared.com/NHHSSports Coaches Poll) to an undefeated regular season. The Union College commit has 167 goals and 81 assists in his career.

“He’s been one of the best players in the league all year and he shows up when the lights are brightest, every time we play a top team,” Derryfield coach Chris Hettler said. “He wants the ball and shows up with big plays when we need him. And then when teams start responding to that, we’ve got other guys we can go to.”

Derryfield will be the top seed in the Division II tournament a year after losing a 13-9 decision to reigning-champion Portsmouth (13-5) in last June’s title game. The Cougars will host a quarterfinal game next Saturday in what could be a rematch against the Bobcats.

Oyster River-Newmarket (8-7) will be the No. 8 seed and host ninth-seeded Merrimack Valley (6-9) in Thursday’s preliminary round.

“I thought we played really hard,” Oyster River-Newmarket coach Amani Mwingira said. "We put together a really strong two or three quarters but at the end of the day it comes down to mental mistakes and against a great team we can’t afford to give the ball back to them.

"In this game, no matter what, catching, passing and fundamentals are the most important thing. They were better than us at that (Friday).”

Derryfield broke a 3-3 tie in the second quarter when Garrett Landes, Emerson Stover (three goals) and Proulx scored. The Bobcats trimmed the deficit before Proulx sent Derryfield into halftime with a 7-5 lead.

Proulx, Stover and Logan Dyer all scored in the third quarter to give Derryfield a 10-5 lead while the defense held the Bobcats scoreless for the final 26:42 of the game.

“I’ve been impressed with how resilient they are. They don’t panic when things aren’t going our way early,” Hettler said. “They do a good job of stopping momentum. I haven’t felt like things have snowballed on us all season and hopefully we can keep that going."

There may be bigger goals that lie ahead for Derryfield, but Hettler doesn’t take for granted what an undefeated regular season means while also looking ahead.

“I’m proud of the guys, we had some questions coming into the season because we had two great senior classes that graduated over the past two years,” Hettler said. “We needed some young guys step up and have so far. But once playoffs hit, teams see film and get scouting reports and we’re going to have to try to get better.”