Irish hang on to beat Red Hawks in quarters
LAWRENCE » For this year’s Notre Dame boys lacrosse team, there is no better time to refocus than in the Mercer County Tournament.
After experiencing the high of nine straight wins to open the season, the Irish slumped with three consecutive losses to Hopewell, Moorestown and Ocean City before the start of the MCT.
It’s all hands on deck now. Hosting an MCT quarterfinal game Saturday afternoon in the rain, third-seeded Notre Dame pulled away with five goals in the second quarter and hung on down the stretch against gritty sixthseeded Pennington for a 9-6 win to advance to Tuesday’s semifinals.
“We just had to ride the wave. We knew that there were going to be momentum changes throughout the game, and however the game goes, we just need to adjust to that,” senior midfielder Joe Meidling said. “We had to get it going in the second quarter there, and when we’re hot, we don’t think anybody in the county is going to be able to touch us. So hopefully if we stay hot, we’re gonna keep winning in the tournament.”
Meidling, a Towson commit, is the engine that drives Notre Dame (10-3) as he leads the team in scoring and ground balls and wins more than 80 percent of the faceoffs. He added to his decorated career Saturday with four goals and two assists.
Ian Staniec and Will Beacham each netted two goals and Liam Harding scored the last one in transition after a Pennington (5-6) turnover near midfield with a minute remaining to ice the outcome.
“We knew it was gonna be a competitive game. It was a competitive game last time, and we knew they were gonna have a chip on their shoulder,” Meidling said. “We knew
the weather was gonna play a big factor and it did, but we just had to stick to our game plan.”
Notre Dame edged Pennington back on April 9, 10-7, in a game where star midfielder Jabril BelleWalker had to leave for Pennington with a mild concussion.
The Hobart commit returned with a vengeance Saturday by exploding for five goals, scoring from a multitude of distances and angles to keep the Red Hawks alive.
“We have a lot of respect for Notre Dame, we know they have a lot of respect for us,” Belle-Walker said. “The biggest thing was, we’ve just got to come out and play our game as much as possible. That’s the biggest thing for us at Pennington. We’re a small team and we have a lot of scrappy guys who are willing to fight as much as they can. A lot of them did that today.”
Burke DeTurro also notched a goal to cut Pennington’s deficit to 4-8 with six minutes left in the third quarter. After Belle-Walker scored twice in a one-minute span with less than five minutes left, the Red Hawks won a faceoff and had two legitimate looks at the net to make it a one-goal game.
Neither dropped, but Pennington used its physicality to flirt with a comeback in the fourth quarter. Belle-Walker attributed that to both assistant Coach Walker’s conditioning program and the energy of Pennington’s youthful team.
“Going into the second half, one of our sophomores came up and he was really enthusiastic and that changed the whole shift,” Belle-Walker said.
“One of our younger guys coming out and he wanted it, and us as upperclassmen, we want it as much as an underclassman. We just came out and played our game as much as possible.”
Notre Dame will look to clean up some turnovers and penalties as it gets set for a rematch with Hopewell Valley in the semifinals.
The Bulldogs knocked out seventh-seeded Princeton Day School in another quarterfinal and stymied the Irish with a 6-1 win during the regular season.
Meidling indicated that Notre Dame has adjusted its scheme and is ready to exact revenge after perhaps getting a bit complacent late in the season.
“Hopewell is a good team. The only way we’re gonna beat them is if we play four strong quarters,” Meidling said. “The next game has to be our best game, and that’s gotta be our mentality. If we play our best game, we win faceoffs, Kyle (Wolchok) does what he’s doing in goal, our defense plays good defense and we’ve just got to keep scoring. I think we’ll do OK.”
Pennington (5-6) 1 1 2 2 — 6 Notre Dame (10-3) 2 5 1 1 — 9
Goals — Belle-Walker 5, DeTurro (P), Meidling 4, Staniec 2, Beacham 2, Harding (ND). Assists — DeTurro (P), Meidling 2 (ND). Shots — 15 (P), 25 (ND). Saves — Levy 10 (P), Wolchok 6 (ND).
*** HOPEWELL VALLEY 12, PDS 7 HOPEWELL TWP. »
Jacob Sanderson and Louis Azara combined for six goals — three each — and the Bulldogs (12-2) bounced the defending champion Panthers.
Charlie Hogshire led PDS (3-9) with three goals.