An historic season came to an end on Wednesday night for the Pennridge boys lacrosse team.
The Rams, the District One sixth-place team, fell to host Springfield (Delco), 17-3, in the opening round of the PIAA Class 3A tournament.
Springfield, the District One champion with multiple state titles on its resume, took a 12-0 lead into halftime and made it 13-0 before junior attacker Ryan Carickhoff finally put Pennridge on the board in the third quarter.
“I noticed he (Springfield goaltender Jackson Kennedy) kind of approached me topside so I was like ‘All right I’ll try and go right,” he said. “I tried to put it back in my left hand, didn’t really work, I pounced out, I squared him up.
“And my perfect opportunity is to square a guy up and choose where I want to go so I put it in my left hand and just kind of went, turned the corner and scored.”
Matt Kriney had a goal and an assist and Kevin Matthews netted a goal for the Rams, while Ben Souder went 9-for-22 in the faceoff circle and Tyler Vandermark made four saves in goal.
“I think we came in with a lot of confidence and we had some rough practices to start off the week but I think we really dialed it in on Tuesday,” Carickhoff said. “So we came in here confident, guys in the locker room were excited to play. They came out and they punched us in the mouth first and they got there, but I still think we have a lot to be proud of.
“I feel like we’ve been a little bit disrespected by the media. I mean the result of the scoreboard I kind of understand why there’s a little bit of doubt in the media and I get it completely. But again, I think we came into the season and a lot of our SOL teams were like ‘Yeah, I don’t know who these guys are.’ We came out, we punched a bunch of teams in the mouth.
“So again, this definitely is a place I want to be again.”
Despite the less than stellar state debut, the Rams can still look back on the 2023 campaign with a great sense of accomplishment.
They finished the season 18-4 and were the Suburban One League National Conference champions after going 7-11 in 2022. This season also featured wins over Central Bucks East and Central Bucks West, both firsts for the program.
After opening the season with four straight wins, the Rams fell to Owen J. Roberts. Then came a 13-game win streak that extended into the District One tournament, where after losing to Wissahickon, they rebounded with a big win over perennial contender Conestoga to secure a state berth.
“It’s hard to put in the past Pennridge next to names like Springfield-Delco and all these top Central League teams and other teams like that,” senior attacker Drew Ferguson said. “But then you look at us beating Conestoga this year and playing with teams like that, it’s good for the program in the future.
“And I think us seniors and older guys can appreciate that we’ve kind of helped grow and maybe in the future where we can be labeled with those teams.”
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