WEST CHESTER — A fast start, especially with a spot in the PIAA championship game on the line, is usually a great thing.
Until it isn’t.
“We lost focus after we got the lead,” La Salle High senior defender Ryan Vandegrift said.
“We got ahead of ourselves and didn’t play our game and it ended up costing us and they were able to come back.”
So, let’s try to make some sense of this.
The Explorers, trying to reach the PIAA Class 3A boys’ lacrosse final for the second straight time, built a 3-0 first-quarter lead before fellow-powerhouse Springfield-Delco found its footing on the way to a convincing 9-5 victory.
The win moved the Cougars, the PIAA District One champs, into Saturday’s PIAA title game while the loss ended the season for the PIAA District 12 champion Explorers.
The Cougars (23-1) will face defending PIAA Class 3A champion Radnor in the title game, which will also be a rematch of the PIAA District One final. Radnor defeated Shady Side Academy (District Seven) 13-8 in Tuesday’s other semifinal.
“We did not take care of the ball well enough and the turnovers really ended up killing us,” La Salle High first-year head coach Jack Forster said.
“And give Springfield a lot of credit because they did a great job covering us and make some good adjustments.”
It was all La Salle (19-6) early on as junior Will Trymbiski, who finished with a team-high three goals, opened the scoring before his brother, senior Jack, made it 2-0 with just over three minutes left in the opening quarter.
Sophomore Logan Riggione followed with another tally less than a minute later to push La Salle’s cushion to 3-0.
However, from there, the Cougars were able to right themselves and outscore the Explorers 9-2 the rest of the way.
La Salle did hold a 4-3 lead at halftime thanks to Will Trymbiski’s second goal in the closing seconds of the second quarter, but the advantage wouldn’t last long.
The Explorers managed just two goals after intermission while the Cougars rattled off four goals in the third quarter and another two in the fourth to pull away.
“We were pushing too much after we got the lead and we should have been more patient,” La Salle senior Max Wickersham said.
“We were looking too far down the road when we were up 3-0 and that ended up really hurting us.”
Drew Markol covers local sports for PhillyBurbs.com. Support our journalism with a subscription.
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: High school boys’ lacrosse: La Salle falls step short of PIAA final