Bishop Gueritn boys lacrosse rolls past Concord

NASHUA – It was not the start that anyone at Stellos Stadium was expecting.

Concord High School’s Tyler Martel scored just 11 seconds after the opening faceoff, and before many had settled in Monday night, the Crimson Tide boys lacrosse team had a 1-0 lead over Bishop Guertin.

It didn’t last long, as the Cardinals responded by scoring the next 11 goals in a 12-minute span, and despite not scoring in the second half, defeated Concord 18-6.

Tom Hurley had five goals and an assist and Connor Donahue had two goals and five helpers to lead Bishop Guertin to its second win of the season in the Cardinals first action since beating Exeter last Wednesday.

“We clicked offensively as well as we have,” Bishop Guertin coach Chris Cameron said. “You don’t know when you’re off for four days, if the kids are practicing. You ask them to practice.

“They were shooting pretty well. We’re focused on getting 8-yard shots this year and we were able to get those. We missed the cage on four or five of them, but other than that, we were picking corners.”

Bishop Gueritn (2-0) also got four goals from Charlie O’Brien while Alex Astaritta had three goals and an assist and Dom St. Laurent, Gage Savigny (assist), Johnny Miller and Dillon Owens also had a goal each.

Concord (1-2) got three goals from Martel while Tim Weinhold (assist), Connor Hawkins and Ian Scura also had a goal apiece.

The Tide trailed 18-3 at the half, but shut out the Cardinals – who pulled most of their starters near the end of the second quarter – for the final 17-plus minutes.

“We played good against a very good team,” Concord coach Jeff Smith said. “At the end of the day, BG is very good and they play at a very fast pace and a lot of our guys are learning what it takes to play that way.

“There are always little victories in everything. We haven’t scored six goals on BG in a long time. I think they recognize that they’ve had some success and got a little better.”

One of those little victories was scoring off the opening faceoff, but Smith wondered if that did more bad than good for Concord.

“It was nice to have that little win, but at the same time, it probably woke them up,” he said. “It’s waking the dragon, so to speak. It can go fast in both directions.”

Fast it went, as the Cardinals tied the game a little more than a minute later and went ahead for good just eight seconds after that. In five minutes, Bishop Guertin led 6-1, and by the time the Tide scored again, with 9:52 left in the second quarter, the Cardinals had put in 11 goals in just under 12 minutes.

“We made two mistakes on the play,” Cameron said of Concord’s opening goal. “We went over the head and got beat, and then we missed a slide. But after that, we scored the next 11, where we dominated the middle of the field and had very unselfish play.

“We don’t want teams to hang around. Then they start believing. Did it wake us up? Maybe it did. I didn’t want to have to raise my voice at all. We were really unselfish making the extra pass and it was spread around.”

When the game was done, Cameron brought his offense back on the field for a brief practice session. The Cardinals had been off since Wednesday due to Easter weekend, and they turned around quickly, with a game at Needham (Mass.) on Tuesday afternoon. The Rockets are the No. 2 ranked team in Massachusetts, according to LaxPower.com.

Bishop Guertin also had games against Nashua North on Thursday and St. Joseph’s, of Metuchen, New Jersey, on Saturday.

“I told the guys, if you’re not excited for this week, the warm weather is here, we’ve got great games,” Cameron said. “Needham is No. 2 coming in, so I think they’re focused and ready to play.”