Bottling up Baskin key for Cougars

WEST GOSHEN >> Years from now, when followers of Springfield lacrosse gaze back at the historic 4-3 victory over La Salle for a 2016 PIAA championship, they’ll remember Mike Gerzabek’s hat trick and James Spence’s eight saves.

They’ll praise coach Tom Lemieux and they’ll recall a great run from a 1-5 start to a state title.

One more thing they shouldn’t forget is how the Springfield defense shut down La Salle’s Brett Baskin.

“A lot of people doubted us all week,” Cougars defender Pat Smyth said. “All we kept reading about was how (La Salle attack) Brett Baskin was going to walk off the field in glory and things like that. But we had a great game plan coming in. We watched a lot of game film and we knew what we had to do.”

According to Smyth, what the Cougars had to do was clamp down on Baskin, but more importantly smother his teammates.

“We knew (Baskin) is a great feeder,” Smyth said, “so we had to communicate off the ball and make sure he couldn’t set up their scorers.”

It helped that the Cougars started the game with a 3-0, first-quarter lead, coutesy of Gerzabek. But Smyth said nobody was relaxed.

“It was great to come out and get the early lead,” he said, “but we knew what (La Salle) is capable of.”

As the fourth-quarter clock clicked down to zeroes, the Cougars confidence wavered, but didn’t bend.

“We were all yelling, ‘Don’t relax now,’” Smyth said with a wide smile. “We knew we had to try harder than we had all season.”

Of course, that was really the theme of the Cougars’ comeback season.

“I think we had confidence we could do this all year,” Smyth said. “I think we have a lot of great players, and the best coaching staff in the state.”