Upper Dublin edged Pennridge in overtime to punch its ticket to the District 1 3A Tournament. Photos provided courtesy of Upper Dublin lacrosse)
District 1 3A playback
#9 Upper Dublin 8, #5 Pennridge 7 (OT)
“Touch the fence”
It’s a phrase that might not mean a whole lot to most, but for members of the Upper Dublin boys’ lacrosse team, it’s become a mantra of sorts, and it’s taken on special meaning during the district playoffs.
“We surprised the boys with a playoff t-shirt that says ‘Touch the fence,’” coach Pat Lacon said. “They’ve really embraced that, and the coolest part was – we come down Spark Drive after our win tonight, and all the boys are chanting ‘Touch the fence,’ so the bus stopped, we all got out. They all ran from one side of the field to the other, touching the fence.”
The UD coach explained the significance of ‘touch the fence.’
“We focus on three pillars, and we continue to always go back to that,” Lacon said. “I’d like to think we’re not results based, we are a process-based program where we focus on energy, attitude and toughness. Whenever something goes wrong, we always refocus back on those three pillars.
“Midway through the season when we had some really tough competition and we saw the areas we needed to improve on, one of our assistant coaches came up with the motto – ‘We’re going to be mentally tough, physically tough and we’re going to touch the fence.’
“What touching the fence means to us is – when we’re not giving it our all – meaning our energy, attitude and toughness, we’re going to touch the fence on one side of the end zone, run to the other side of the end zone, touch that fence and come back to where we started.”
Thursday night’s ‘touch-the-fence’ stop after the Cards’ scintillating overtime road win in a District 1 3A playback game is a moment they won’t soon forget, nor will they forget a game that was a roller coaster of emotions for both sides, culminating with a goal by sophomore Matt Shohen for the game-winner in the opening moments of overtime.
“Not exactly what we predicted or planned but a nice grind-it-out win,” Lacon said. “We went up 4-0 to start, they called a timeout and kind of rallied their troops.
“We were able to win some key 50-50 moments, and then they went on a little bit of a run and then we started to pull away, and they came back and eventually tied. We had two or three opportunities at the end of regulation – I think we hit two or three pipes at the end.
“Went into overtime – we won the faceoff, we got the ball, settled down, Matt (Shohen) had an inside roll and was able to bury it.”
Shohen’s game-winner came after Will Hoffmann won the faceoff at the beginning of overtime.
“I needed to win the face-off,” Hoffman said. “I told my guys – ‘I’m going to get it to the offense.’ I ended up mucking it up, and he actually interfered with me, so we won the ball and got it to our offense.”
That set the stage for Shohen’s game-winner.
“First off, if Will Hoffmann didn’t win the faceoff, I don’t think it would have happened,” Shohen said of the electrifying win. “We got the ball down to Kyle Spirt, who’s the quarterback of our offense. He passed me the ball, and I saw an opportunity to take my defender to my strong hand on an inside roll. I did it, and I found the back of the net.
“I couldn’t really see anything because I got crushed after the ball, but it felt really good.”
The win in Thursday’s playback punched the Cardinals’ ticket to the state tournament – their first trip since 2018.
“This means a lot to us,” UD senior Al Eby said. “It wasn’t exactly a goal. We try to take things day by day, but we knew we could beat Pennridge. We didn’t have our best stuff, but it was huge for us to battle through that and find a way to win.
“It wasn’t pretty. We kind of gritted our way through it. I was proud of everyone. It means a lot to me personally. I’ve never been to states, so that was one of my goals going into the season. It feels good.”
The Cardinals rolled to a perfect 10-0 record and the SOL American Conference title after three straight years of finishing second to Wissahickon, but it was the team’s non-league schedule that was the difference maker. UD’s schedule included three of the four District 1 3A semifinalists (Springfield-Delco, Radnor and Downingtown East) and also District 1 2A finalist Marple.
“What prepared us was our schedule,” Eby said. “We play the top teams in the area – we play Radnor, we play (Springfield) Delco. We play everyone pretty much. We’ve seen everything, and I think that’s what makes us play better when we’re here.
“We’ve seen better, we’ve played better, and we know we can go out there and if we give everything, then things are going to go our way. From the beginning of the year, we had one goal to win – win, win, win. We want to keep going. We knew we had to win.”
The Cardinals roared out the starting gate to a 4-0 lead after one quarter, but the Rams trimmed that lead to 4-2 by halftime. The Cards took a 7-4 lead into the fourth quarter when the Rams rallied to knot the score at 7 apiece, but the Cardinals were not deterred.
“With 30 seconds in overtime, we hit the pipe twice,” Hoffmann said. “We knew we had the momentum then. When it came to overtime, I knew I had to win the faceoff. We got it down on offense, and Matt Shohen did his thing.”
“When we were up 4-0, we knew we had to keep our foot on the gas,” Shohen said. “We fell behind a little bit – they started to come back, but we kept our foot on the gas, and we finished the game, which is what mattered most.
“This is really exciting. We worked for this through practice and the whole season and offseason. We really worked as a team, played together and we earned it.”
Listening to Eby tell it, there were several keys to the win.
“Just the hustle plays – the ground balls, the 50/50 balls, the grit plays – diving for the end line,” Eby said. “That’s something we really focus on, and I think that’s something we did really well tonight. The first quarter we went up 4-0 solely off those ground balls, 50/50 balls – we won all of them, and that helped us go up 4-0.
“The other thing was – we just really stayed together as a team. It’s easy when you’re up and when they come back to kind of fall apart and let them take over, but we stuck together as a team. We played as one unit. We didn’t really turn on each other – we leaned on each other and did our thing.”
The players also received inspiration from the team’s bench.
“It comes from our dog pound,” Hoffmann said. “They’re always hyped, they’re revving us up, and then it started with the ground balls.”
There’s no mistaking the significance of Thursday’s state qualifying win.
“It’s awesome,” Lacon said. “It shows the grit and determination of everybody. We do have a lot of players within the program, and I think some of the challenges along the way is finding your voice, finding your role and embracing everything. This is a special group. It really started last year with our seniors. Their leadership has bled through into these guys. It continues to go from the top down.”
By the numbers: Eby and Shohen both had two goals to lead the Cards’ offense. Adding one goal each were Cam Osborne, Nate Brown, Kyle Spirt and Ben Guagliardo. Will Hoffmann won 8 of 18 faceoffs. Guagliardo also contributed an assist. Parish Albright recorded 14 saves in the win.
For the Rams, Matt Seiler led the way with four goals while Matt Kriney added a pair. Frank Fanelli and Levi Souder each had an assist. Cole Nitterour won 10 of 17 faceoffs.
Tyler Vandermark was credited with 23 saves in a busy night in goal.
Upper Dublin (16-5, 10-0 SOL) will travel to #7 Spring-ford for a playback game on Wednesday. Pennridge saw its successful season end with a 16-5 record overall (9-1 SOL National Conference champions).
Upper Dublin 4-0-3-0-1 8
Pennridge 0-2-2-3-0 7
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