Valentine's return for D1 boys lacrosse final a special end to a tough year for Pinkerton senior

Chris Valentine was ready to play with a broken thumb.

Sitting at the scorers' table, watching his Pinkerton Academy boys lacrosse teammates battle Bishop Guertin during the regular season, Valentine wanted to jump on the field and do whatever he could as he watched the Astros fall to their biggest rival.

Instead, the Pinkerton senior got to sit and wonder, would he ever get another chance to put on the red-and-white No. 9 jersey he'd worn since freshman year.

"I broke my thumb in the second game of the season, so I was pretty bummed about that," Valentine said. "I thought my season was over."

As if missing most of his senior season in a second sport - Valentine also sat out most of the football season with a knee injury - wasn't enough of an emotional stomach punch, he was taken for a roller coaster ride over the final two weeks of the regular season.

"My doctor said I was cleared for one of the final games against Andover," he said, "and I ended up shifting my bone again."

Despite that setback, Valentine was able to return for the start of the playoffs on June 2, scoring two goals in Pinkerton's quarterfinal win over Nashua South. After not scoring the semifinal win over Exeter, he scored three goals in the Astros' 11-9 win over Bishop Guertin in Saturday's Division I championship game, including two in the third quarter that swung momentum.

"We weren’t sure when he broke his thumb at the beginning of the season if we would be back," Pinkerton coach Brian O'Reilly said. "We went with the people we had and we were doing OK.

"It got clear to us maybe about a month ago that he could come back, but that he’d be wearing a cast. Would he be able to shoot, because it was his shooting hand. He’s gotten better and better and better with it. He makes a big difference."

After playing a few minutes as a freshman in Pinkerton's 2015 championship win, Valentine was on the field for the Astros' losses to Bishop Guertin the last two years. Leading into this game, he and the rest of the seniors stressed to the underclassmen the importance of getting one more win.

"The past couple of days, we’d been talking that we are not losing this year," he said. "We have this group and the heart that was in it, the heart we talked about, was unbelievable. Us coming together, it was unbelievable."

But after Pinkerton's fast start - the Astros led 6-2 at halftime, the only time all season the Cardinals trailed at the break - Bishop Guertin scored four goals in less than four minutes of the third quarter to tie the game at 6. Mason Drouin gave Pinkerton a 7-6 lead after the Cardinals tied it, but Sean Cameron knotted it back up at 7 just 20 seconds later.

"I knew I wasn’t going down without a fight," Valentine said. "I saw the score and thought we’ve got to go now."

Pinkerton won the faceoff after Cameron's goal, but turned the ball over. The Cardinals weren't able to do anything with the possession and turned it over, leading to a goal by Valentine that made it 8-7 with 1:36 left in the quarter.

The Astros got another faceoff, and this time, scored, as Ryan Auger found Valentine for a goal with 22.1 seconds to go in the third and a 9-7 lead. Brian Cameron would get a goal back for Bishop Guertin with 1.7 seconds remaining to make it 9-8, but that was as close the Cardinals got the rest of the way.

Pinkerton eventually stretched the lead to three goals late in the fourth quarter.

"I knew going up three goals that it was over," Valentine said. "The defense was winning that game. We were going to make the stops and that we were good. It’s unbelievable. Words can’t explain it."