PHS bids farewell to seniors after falling in state lacrosse

By: Justin Feil
   Losing shy of the state tournament final for the fourth straight year was tough on the Princeton High boys’ lacrosse coaches and players.
   But it wasn’t so much the 8-6 loss to Hunterdon Central in Friday’s state tournament second round that stung, but that it was the end for another outstanding group of PHS seniors.
   "It’s a bittersweet feeling," said PHS head coach Peter Stanton, whose team finished 13-5. "You feel so strongly for them, and then you have to say good-bye."
   Stanton bids good-bye to 13 seniors this year, 13 that he feels lucky to have coached. Among them are players who are in their first year of making big contributions and others, like goalie Chris Lalli of Crnabury, leading-scorer Bennett Murphy and midfielder James Kadar, also of Cranbury, who were in their third year of playing plenty.
   "I started playing lacrosse in Princeton High School," said Kadar, who will spend a post-graduate year at Choate before he hopes to continue his playing career in college. "Now, all of a sudden, there goes my high school lacrosse days. It seems like just the other day that I was over there on the tennis courts picking up a lacrosse stick for the first time. It’s gone in a flash.
   "People always told me how quickly it would go by, but I guess I never believed them or realized how fast it would go."
   The way the Little Tigers started Friday, led by the example set by their seniors, it didn’t appear that it would be gone for at least another four days, not before PHS had a chance to challenge Mountain Lakes.
   "We were just incredibly pumped," Kadar said. "We came out knowing it was our last home game and our last game on this field."
   Murphy scored the first three goals of the game for a 3-0 PHS lead, then Kadar answered Hunterdon Central’s first goal with his first of the day for a 4-1 first-quarter lead and it looked as though PHS might have a chance to advance.
   "We went up, 3-0, and it was a shock to them," Kadar said. "I was expecting something like that. We got so up for this. The seniors, we came out so pumped. And we were hoping to keep that going."
   But the second and third quarters proved to be PHS’ undoing. Hunterdon Central scored two man-up goals in the second quarter and the first four goals following half-time to take a 7-4 lead.
   "I always felt we could come back," Kadar said. "They got up two or three goals, but I wasn’t thinking for a second that the game was over."
   Kadar gave the Little Tigers a shot of adrenaline with a bullet of a goal with one second left in the third quarter, then scored with 8:05 left in regulation to bring PHS within one goal, 7-6, before Hunterdon Central’s defense clamped down.
   "I thought we were (going to come back)," Kadar said. "We never quite did it. They just got those quick goals."
   The loss ended the high school careers of the 13 Little Tiger seniors, but they don’t leave empty-handed. They were part of another Bianchi Division championship team, and earned the highest seed amomg Mercer County teams at No. 15.
   "Of course, it would have been nice to get farther," Kadar said, "but this doesn’t take away anything from this year. We had a few big wins. We won the Bianchi. Maybe we fell a little short of our expectations."
   But it’s been quite a career for the 13 seniors who graduate, from start to finish.
   "This group of seniors were freshmen when we went 17-1 in 2000," Stanton said. "When they came in, the expectations they experienced as freshmen were always something they were willing to live up to. They never backed down. They wanted to meet them.
   "We’re thrilled," he added of the season. "We had a couple amazing wins. We beat Moorestown in overtime to open the season. We got to go up to Montclair and beat a nine-time champion in overtime. We got a Bianchi Division championship. I think we’re ready to move up to the A division."
   PHS will do so without a senior class that has made it to the state tournament every year and won or shared the last four Bianchi Division titles. And while losing to Hunterdon Central after taking an early lead make Friday’s loss tough, it was tougher because of what it meant on the bigger scale.
   "It’s the end of the season, no question," Stanton said. "With how the game ended up, you can find a lot of ‘should have shot it there’ or ‘could have done that better,’ but the effort was there. It came down to them being a little better than us."
   It’s something that, thanks to talented and hard-working seniors like this year’s class, Stanton hasn’t been able to say often in the last four seasons.