It wasn’t particularly pretty, but it was a win.
The Pennridge boys lacrosse team traveled to Hatboro-Horsham for a non-league game on Monday and escaped with a 13-11 victory.
Pennridge got the scoring off with a goal by Rocco Fanelli with an assist from Frankie Fanelli.
After that, the Hatters went to town, netting five consecutive goals. Drew Ferguson got a goal for the Rams with an assist from Ben Souder, but Hatboro’s Alex Cerminara scored with 3:10 to go to end the first period with a 6-2 lead.
Pennridge rebounded with a huge second quarter, scoring seven goals while completely shutting out the Hatters to take a 9-6 lead into halftime.
“You’ve got to pass the ball to score and there were times in this game where we did that pretty well,” said Frankie Fanelli, a junior who ended the game with one goal and four assists. “We came out flat but the second quarter was a lot better. We put in seven goals and we weren’t taking 10-yard shots. We were dumping it in on the crease and that’s how we were getting it started.
“We need to get away from letting other teams get a jump on us. When we start playing teams like Conestoga and those teams on the Main Line, that’s not going to fly. We got away with it this time, but we can’t keep doing this.”
Hatboro scored the first three goals of the third quarter to tie the game up, but with 2:54 to go, Matt Seiler scored to grab the lead back for Pennridge, and 1 from 8 capitalized on a man-up opportunity to send the Rams into the break with an 11-9 lead.
The Hatters scored the first goal of the fourth quarter to get within one, but that was as close as they’d be for the rest of the game. Seiler scored back-to-back goals before Hatboro netted the final goal of the game.
“We come out a little shaky, we can’t really keep a steady bar graph,” said Ferguson, a senior who will play at Widener next year while majoring in finance. “It’s something we’ve been working on the past few years. We go up, down, up, down.
“The first quarter we weren’t playing to the best of our ability and then the second quarter we came out pretty hard. We were a little flat in the second half but ultimately we came out with the win.
“We need to be stronger. We’ve got to be more prepared. We showed up a little loose and we paid for it in the first quarter. It’s a lesson to be learned.”
Ferguson scored three goals and had one assist in the game.
Rocco Fanelli ended the day with three goals and one assist, Ryan Carickhoff had one goal and two assists, Matt Kriney contributed one goal and one assist, and Levi Souder netted a single tally for the Rams.
Ben Souder won 18 of 25 faceoffs for Pennridge.
“As the faceoff guy there’s some pressure because it leads to offense right away and that leads to scoring,” said Souder, a senior who will play at Eastern while studying business administration. “I really want to be able to contribute to that.
“We dug a big hole for ourselves in this game, but we were able to get out of it. That’s our fatal flaw, that we don’t come out hot. The only game so far where we did was Methacton, so that’s something we have to fix.
“We were able to value the ball. We had some good shots and we shot so much more than they did. You’ve got to shoot to score and eventually they start going in.”
Sophomore Calvin McGuire made eight saves in goal for the Rams.
“Calvin really stepped up,” Souder said. “Our other goalie, Tyler Vandermark, got hurt in the second game and Calvin’s been doing a really good job. We also had a freshman, Rocco Fanelli, step up for us. It’s great to see the younger players contributing like that.”
Pennridge uncharacteristically missed the playoffs last year.
“I see us bouncing back from that,” Ferguson said. “Last year we had a pretty mediocre year and I really want us to fight to make a deeper run in the playoffs.
“After having such a legacy where we make it almost every year, not making it last year was pretty hurtful for everyone, so we want to make it back.”
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