Cougars best of county

MHS boys’ lacrosse joins exclusive group

By: Justin Feil
   BASKING RIDGE — Welcome to the club, Montgomery High.
   The Cougar boys’ lacrosse team joined some exclusive company in its first-ever Somerset County Tournament championship game by upending top-seeded and two-time defending champion Pingry, 6-3, Sunday.
   "Now we finally feel like we’re part of the history of the county," said MHS head coach Tim Sullivan, whose team improved to 14-3. "We came here, now we conquered. Hopefully we can keep coming back here. It’s always been Pingry and Bridgewater. Now we’re the new boys. Hopefully we’re here to stay."
   Since the inception of the tournament in 2002, every SCT final had been Pingry vs. Bridgewater-Raritan, until Sunday. The second-seeded Cougars raised the trophy in their first appearance in the SCT title game thanks to solid play all-around.
   Junior attack Jim Yetter had two goals and little brother Mike Yetter celebrated his birthday with two goals of his own. Tim Santye got the Cougars rolling with a goal and an assist in the first quarter to open a 2-0 lead. Sean Hover had three assists. Spencer Schwab won nine of 11 face-offs.
   "They played as a team," Sullivan said. "It made a difference. It helps us getting geared up for states. I was happy how we played except for a couple possessions in the third quarter. But they played well together. Spencer, he was huge. People don’t realize how important face-offs were. He had a huge game."
   Bigger than anything was the play of the MHS defense, which had surrendered 11 goals in a loss to Voorhees in Thursday. The Cougars bounced back from that disappointment — a chance to wrap up sole possession of the Bianchi Division championship.
   "It was more of a wake-up call," said Justin DeLuca, who plays defense for the Cougars. "It showed us no championship, no trophy was going to come easily."
   From the outset, the Cougars showed they had come to the Ridge High turf field to take away the county trophy from a team that beat them, 13-4, in last year’s SCT semifinal It was totally different this year.
   It was 4-0 at halftime and the Cougars kept the shutout going until 8:40 remained in the third quarter. Pingry cut the lead to 4-2 barely over a minute later and trimmed it to 4-3 with a goal 2:36 into the fourth quarter, but never found the cage again.
   "At halftime, we knew they’d come out with new plays and new looks," said Ryan Butler, another of the MHS defenders. "It took a bit to figure them out. Joe DiGangi played really well. He’s our leader back there."
   DiGangi came up big for the Cougars when they needed it most from their first-year goalie. Pingry had the momentum and the ball after trimming the lead to 4-3 when DiGangi made a kick save with 6:01 to play. Pingry hit the post with its next shot and the Cougars recovered the loose ball before Jim Yetter gave MHS some breathing room with his second goal of the game with 3:29 to play. Schwab won the face-off and MHS opened it up when Pingry was forced to gamble with Mike Yetter’s second goal of the game with 1:16 left.
   "If Joe doesn’t make that save and they don’t hit the post," Sullivan said, "they wouldn’t have had to push out and we wouldn’t have got that last goal. It was big."
   Limiting Pingry to three goals was something that Sullivan thought his defense could do, though the Cougars had done so just three times before this season, all against teams with records far under .500. Pingry entered Sunday’s game at 11-4.
   "We played real solid today," said Butler, who credited assistant coach Andrew Conforti with preparing the MHS defense. "We played as a team."
   Added DeLuca: "The best part was the amount of communication we had. We never stopped talking. We played as a unit, not as individuals."
   The Cougars hope to continue their team play with two more championships on the line this week. They will host Hopewell Valley in their final Bianchi game of the season once both teams finish state tournament play. With a win, MHS will have sole possession of the championship. Wednesday, they open play in the Group II state tournament as the No. 3 seed. They’ll host Jefferson Township, and look to ride the momentum of Sunday’s first SCT win.
   "We set a goal to make it here," Butler said. "We didn’t set a goal to win it, but we hope to be here every year now."
   To do so, the Cougars will need the same consistency out of its defense that it got in Sunday’s win. It’s the type of performance that MHS will need in the state tournament against similar teams that have solid defenses.
   "We hope to carry it further," DeLuca said. "This is an introduction of what is to come.
   "We were confident," he added. "We just had to give 110 percent. We knew every person counted to win this game."
   It was the first county title for the Cougar boys. Butler and DeLuca are junior members of the defense — two reasons that MHS feels confident that it can return to defend its title.
   "We’re not sending anything down," DeLuca said. "We’re not going to give anything up."
   The Cougars now try to send off their eight seniors with a Bianchi and Group II state title. They’ve already delivered a first county crown in their first try.
   "We knew this was an opportunity of a lifetime for more than eight people," DeLuca said. "We knew we had to come out with our ‘A’ game."
   When MHS did, it brought the boys’ lacrosse team the first SCT title and immediate inclusion in some exclusive county company.