By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
It took two of the state’s best teams to end the state tournaments for the Montgomery High School and Princeton High School boys lacrosse teams.
Sixth-seeded Montgomery lost, 11-6, to third-seeded and Skyland Conference rival Hillsborough on Thursday in the Group IV quarterfinals.
In the Group III quarterfinals, seventh-seeded Princeton lost, 10-5, to No. 2 Ridge on Thursday. The Little Tigers’ Griffin Peck made 19 saves, Mike Hellstern had two goals and Zach Halliday, Bassel Hashem and Kirby Peck each had a goal apiece. Mike Irving and Colman Preziosi each had an assist as the Little Tigers finished 14-5-1.
”It was a battle,” said PHS head coach Peter Stanton. “They had to work to beat us. We had an early lead. It was 4-2 at halftime, and they got it up to 8-3. We got it back to 8-5. It was a battle.
”We hoped if we could hang around them long enough, we could make enough plays to make it a winnable game.”
Montgomery got three goals from Josh Reinson and two goals and an assist from Kevin Wanke. Sean Lynch also added an assist and Jimmy O’Brien made four saves for the Cougars, who finished their year 12-9.
”It was a really tight game at halftime,” said MHS head coach Don Green. “They were very athletic. They had tremendous chemistry. They played very well, very smart and they started to pull away.
”We did make a rally and tried to come back and got a few penalties that sealed our fate. They put it away one or two times during our comeback.”
Both Montgomery and Princeton had experienced growing pains during the year, but overcame rough starts to advance to the quarterfinals. MHS was 3-6 before turning their season around with a big run. Playing in the Skyland Conference did them no favors, and helped contribute to a strength of schedule ranked fifth in the state at the end of the regular season.
”It’s such a good conference,” Green said. “If you drop a little bit, you drop a long way. Moorestown and Hunterdon Central were a little down. Maybe this year, we were considered a little down, but we’ll be back.”
The Cougars were 3-8 in the Skyland Conference. They went 9-1 out of conference, but unfortunately ran into another Skyland team in the state tournament, which was bound to happen this year.
”It was basically the Skyland Conference and Montclair,” Green said of the tournament. “When you compare yourself to the teams in the Skyland Conference, who are the top teams in the state, we’re comparing ourselves to really good teams.”
Green and the Cougars don’t want that standard to end.
”We hold ourselves to high standards,” Green said. “We were a top 25 team. We basically beat all the teams out of our conference. We are always going to measure ourselves against the teams in our conference that we play every year, and our county and then states. Those are the teams we have to measure ourselves against.”
The Cougars will lose most of their starting defense, but will return a lot of their scoring, led by Wanke.
”They’ll be motivated,” Green said. “We graduated so many seniors last year, I expected to be in the middle of the Skyland Conference, but every year you strive to do a little better than you expect.”
PHS won only one of its first five games, but after tying Robbinsville they won 11 straight games to reach the Mercer County Tournament final. They closed the year with wins in 13 of their final 15 games.
”We’re really pleased with how far we came,” Stanton said. “To be honest, the kids at the beginning of the season, they didn’t really know what they could expect. Sometimes when you don’t know, you don’t work as hard. At some point, they decided they would make the best effort. That occurred after the Robbinsville game.
”We improved a remarkable amount during the season. It all started with the kids making up their mind that they wanted to improve. That was some really excellent senior leadership.”
The Little Tiger seniors had posted some big goals before the year began. Their big finish helped them exit with a sense of satisfaction.
”They weren’t expecting a state championship and to write record books,” Stanton said, “but they expected to be successful.
”We knew this year was going to be different. We didn’t know what it was going to bring, other than to be successful would take a different formula. As coaches, we always hold the bar high. We always push our players to go higher than they think they can do.”
Princeton was able to develop into a stronger overall unit throughout the year led by a stifling defense. Ridge was just the second team to reach double-digit goals against PHS. The Little Tigers have 12 seniors on their roster, including the majority of their defense and some key offensive players and midfielders. They set the tone for the season and didn’t allow PHS to stay down after a slow start.
”It’s a bunch of good players,” Stanton said. “The great lesson for this team was just to see, it was almost instantaneous, we’d work very hard at it and we’re better at it. To see their hard work translate into results immediately hopefully is the lesson that the kids coming back will take out of this season and hopefully into their lives. Hard work paid off for us this year.”
