Conestoga bounces back, edges Harriton

How much did a humiliating shutout loss to Radnor in the regular season finale late last week affect the mojo of the Conestoga boys’ lacrosse program?

It certainly bled into Tuesday’s District 1 3A opening round clash against another Central League foe in Harriton at Teamer Field. The 10th seeded Pioneers struggled throughout the early going against the No. 23 Rams until cocaptain Drew Merschel took command and led ’Stoga to a highlycompetitive 7-5 triumph.

“After not scoring a single goal in a game (a 9-0 setback at Radnor), that took a toll on our confidence,” Merschel acknowledged. “And even though we beat (Harriton) during the regular season, we knew that they are a good team.

“We needed to boost our mojo. We had to get gritty.”

With the win, Conestoga improves to 14-5 overall and advances to Thursday’s second round, where they will be on the road against No. 7 Central Bucks West (15-3). The Rams season ends with a 10-9 mark.

“It was important that our kids came here and finally believed they can play with a big-name like Conestoga,” said Harriton head coach Dave Sowers.

“These kids just fought, and the one thing we told them is that we can control our energy and our effort.”

Whether it was a hangover from the previous outing or not, it was a truly troubling start for ’Stoga. So much so that the Rams equaled their entire scoring output from the regular season meeting 12 days earlier – 48 minutes of lacrosse and an 8-3 setback – in the opening 13:31.

Harriton scored first, and then added two goals on defensive miscues by the Pioneers – Bradley Fagan grabbed a pass intended for the Conestoga keeper, and then Avi Ragozzino turned another turnover into a goal a little over a minute later.

During a subsequent timeout, Pioneers’ head coach Brady Bush said, quite forcefully: ‘Wake up! This is a playoff game.’

“We came out slow, but we chipped away,” Bush said. “These are high school kids – there are highs and lows – and sometimes kids think they are better than they are, or worse than they are. The latter happened today.”

It was at this point, down 3-1 in the second quarter, that Merschel took matters into his own hands. The Conestoga senior scored on an inside power move, and then tied it with a move from behind the cage off a rebound. Nine seconds later, junior Clif Hawkins scored off a steal, and the home