Bishop Guertin boys lacrosse adjusts, pulls away from Exeter to reach D1 final

EXETER – The Bishop Guertin High School boys lacrosse team has shown its offense is capable of igniting and changing games in a matter of moments this season.

The No. 2 Cardinals did it twice in Wednesday’s Division I semifinal against No. 6 Exeter, first to get some breathing room and then to put the game away.

Bishop Guertin scored four goals in the first 2:13 of the second quarter to break a tie with the Blue Hawks and then pulled away with four goals in 2:09 of the fourth to roll to a 17-7 win over Exeter at Bill Ball Stadium.

The win sends the Cardinals to the D1 title game for the 13th straight year, where they will face No. 1 Pinkerton for the fifth time in a row on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in Exeter.

[Click here to view more photos from this game.]

Drew Hailey led Bishop Guertin (17-2) with four goals while John Bruno had three goals and two assists and Sean Cameron added three goals. Brian Cameron also had a goal and four assists as the Blue Hawks (12-8) face guarded the junior when he didn’t have the ball and doubled him with two long poles when he did.

“We’ve seen a lot of different defenses, but that one took us a timeout to adjust,” Bishop Guertin coach Chris Cameron said. “Brian had to give himself up and we left it for the other guys to play five-on-four. Once we did that, it opened things up.”

While the Cardinals’ offense had to regroup, so did the defense, as it struggled against Exeter junior Mike Penna in the first quarter. Penna had two of his four goals in the first as the Blue Hawks scored with 12.5 seconds left in the frame to make it a 3-3 game.

And that’s when Bishop Guertin’s offense got going. Christian Trahan won the opening faceoff of the second quarter and the ball ended up in Bruno’s stick, as he scored 40 seconds in to break the tie. Trahan won the next faceoff and Ben Abladian scored the second of his two goals 17 seconds later to make it 5-3.

Another faceoff win by Trahan led to a goal by Hailey 32 seconds after that and Hailey scored again with the Cardinals a man-up with 9:47 left in the second to make it 7-3.

“We’ve got to get out and get going, we’ve got to get transition,” Trahan said of what was said in the break between quarters. “Once you get that, it blows the cap off and you start to fly.”

But Exeter didn’t go away and cut the lead Cardinals’ lead to three, 8-5, at halftime, and it was a 9-6 game when Ben Baldasaro scored his second goal of the game for the Blue Hawks 8:41 to go in the third quarter.

Bishop Guertin started to pull away, scoring three more times over the final eight minutes of the quarter, and freshman goalie James Heitmiller – who came on for starter Colin Casey at halftime – made a couple of saves to extinguish any Exeter chances.

Another run of four goals in a little more than two minutes early in the fourth quarter put Bishop Guertin up 16-6 with 8:41 remaining.

“That’s depth, that’s wearing them out,” Chris Cameron said. “When you have the ball that long and they have to play defense, they get tired. We just wore them down.

“We have to play better to beat a team a team like Pinkerton in the championship. We were a little flat in the first half, but Exeter had our attention. I don’t want to say we were looking ahead, but we were flat.”