WPIAL teams miss out on trip to PIAA finals
Tri-State Sports & News Service
At first glance it might have appeared that this was finally the year the WPIAL broke the glass ceiling and had a team appear in a state boys lacrosse title match.
After all, this was the inaugural year for the PIAA to sponsor championships in two classifications. With WPIAL teams in each of the western semifinals, there seemed to be a good chance for one of them to get through.
Instead, both Mars and Mt. Lebanon drove back disappointed from Cumberland Valley High School. The Blue Devils were first after they suffered a 13-3 loss to District 1 champion Conestoga in Class 3A, while the Planets followed them westward on the turnpike just a few hours later saddled with a 20-9 defeat to District 1 runner-up West Chester Henderson in the Class 2A semifinal.
“We expected them to be a top-notch program because they had been in the [Division I] state semis the year before and a lot of these Double-A programs are perennial powers,” Mars coach Bob Marcoux said. “We were pretty sure we were going to face a pretty good lacrosse team.”
Year after year the WPIAL has sent teams into the boys and girls tournaments with the hope of finally becoming the one that plays for a state title. Only every year since 2009 when the PIAA first recognized state championships in lacrosse, those teams have faced a this-far-and-no-further barrier with losses in the state semifinals. It’s not just the WPIAL. In boys lacrosse, no team from anywhere in the state outside of the two Philadelphia-based areas of District 1 and District 12 have ever made it to the state finals. On the girls side it had been all District 1 in the finals until this year when Kennard Dale, the District 3 runnerup that defeated Oakland Catholic in the quarterfinals, and District 12 champion Archbishop Carroll, broke through.
“I think we need to keep closing the gap and it’s not necessarily a skill gap,” Mt. Lebanon coach Mike Ermer said. “I think there’s highend talent on each side of the state and it’s close to being equal. Our high-end guys can hang with their highend guys, but it’s just a matter of depth and consistency.”
There is also a sense of tradition. While the WPIAL only traces its champions back to when the PIAA first adopted the sport in 2009, District 1 can take its boys winners all the way back to 1965 while the girls titlists go back to 1976.
Though schools like Mt. Lebanon played lacrosse for several years before the official state delineation, it remains a fledgling sport for most of the current WPIAL participants.
“It comes down to the dedication and the grass-roots sponsorship at the youth level. We’ve got to start developing these kids and that’s one of the reasons why Mars has had some of the limited success that we have had,” Marcoux said.
“The community gets it right and started a youth program about eight or nine years ago and developed these kids with the right skills, but we’re really new to it.”
Hope comes with every WPIAL setback. Mt. Lebanon and Conestoga were tied, 2-2, after the first quarter while Mars trailed only 54 after the first quarter against West Chester Henderson.
It might not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but when WPIAL teams begin competing for a quarter, it can eventually turn into a half and maybe, in the end, a full game. In their seven PIAA semifinal games, the WPIAL boys, in both classifications, have lost by an average of 10.0 goals per game.
“We’re really making a push to try to develop lacrosse in the area and, next winter, we’re going to have a youth and middle school coaches’ convention just held locally to teach those coaches to be better coaches,” Ermer said. “It’s all about the development in those teams and how you build programs and build up an area.”