Wilson tops Exeter for 11th championship in row
Seamus Breslin scores a gamehigh four goals to lead the Bulldogs
It was just another day at the office for Wilson boys lacrosse team.
The Bulldogs won controllingly 14-1 over Exeter at at Albright College to claim their 11th straight Berks Boys Lacrosse League championship.
“They always feel good,” Wilson coach Ryan Sheaffer said. “Each year it’s a different group of kids and they all have different gifts and strengths and they all work really hard. So every year you feel really good for the group of kids that get a chance to win it and lift the trophy. Always feels good and we never take it for granted.”
The top-seeded Bulldogs (17-3) have won 140 consecutive games against league opponents.
Wilson got off to a quick start, getting its first goal from Cohen Renninger off an assist from Brady Rigdon within the first two minutes.
Seamus Breslin scored his first of four goals with 4:53 remaining in the first quarter.
“We’re just doing the things we know how to do,” Breslin said on how he and his team felt coming into the game. “We take care of business at practice and it translates on the field. Taking care of the little details and working hard as a team in a setting when there’s no competition means everything when there is competition.”
Third-seeded Exeter (127) got its lone goal when Ty Yonas, the league’s leading goal scorer, scored with 3:23 left in the first. Yonas finished this season with 102 goals and 27 assists and his career with a league-record 239 goals and 91 assists. He finished second all-time in the BCIAA in points with 330; Connor Howell, a 2015 Wilson grad, holds the record
with 353 points.
The Bulldogs blew it open in the second quarter, getting six goals from five players, including two from Breslin. Breslin’s final goal came with just seven seconds remaining in the half.
“Seamus has been unbelievable this year,” Sheaffer said. “He’s really become the quarterback of our offense. … He organizes us
and tells the guys where to go and where to be. And he can score in a variety of ways, which you saw tonight.”
In the third quarter, the Bulldogs scored three goals — one each from Spencer Thenga, Jack Dendall and Breslin — within a twominute span.
Wilson kept up its hounding defense until the last
whistle, not allowing Exeter to get close to another goal.
The Bulldogs scored three more goals in the fourth.
For Wilson, Renninger finished with three goals and Dendall had two goals and one assist.
This loss concluded the Eagles’ season as they did not qualify for District 3 play.
“I think it went well,” Exeter’s Derek Stump said about his first season as head coach. “I was hired and we had really, really low numbers to the point where we were looking at not being able to form a team. … I think all things considered it was a very good season but more motivation to keep grinding and be better in the future.”