What Ric Beardsley started when he took over as Christian Brothers Academy boys lacrosse head coach five years ago culminated last Saturday night with the familiar sight of helmets, sticks and gloves strewn all over the turf at St. John College in Pittsford.
That’s how a state championship gets celebrated, and for the first time, the Brothers have that moniker in the wake of a 12-5 victory over Westlake in the state Class D title game that illustrated just how much the program has grown and improved in the last half-decade.
Skill and talent were always present at CBA. What turned the Brothers into champions was the insertion by Beardsley and his coaching staff of an attitude of not just settling for good, but going after much more.
It’s what fueled a 12-game win streak that closed the season following a tough early schedule that featured some setbacks. It pushed the Brothers past Westhill in an epochal double-overtime classic for the team’s first Section III title since 2007.
After that, nothing was as stressful for CBA, who dominated three consecutive state playoff games (over Chenango Forks, St. Lawrence and Akron) by a combined 56-15 margin, and the ease of those games would pay off for the Brothers at the final hurdle, too.
In contrast to CBA’s rout of Akron in last Wednesday’s state semifinal, Westlake, the Section I champions also going after a first-ever state title, needed overtime to beat Babylon in its state semifinal.
What’s more, the Wildcats’ head coach, Hunter Barnard, had to miss the title game because he was getting married in the Poconos, so assistant coach Mark Castellano took over, though Barnard was able to talk to his players before the game by telephone.
No matter who was on the sideline, though, it was CBA’s players that proved too tough to handle.
It took less than 90 seconds for Alex Calkins to score off a feed from Patrick O’Brien, with Calkins scoring again after a Ben McCreary tally to make it 3-0 before the game was four minutes old, prompting a Westlake time-out.
To its credit, the Wildcats did start to stir, pulling within one, 4-3, by the end of the first quarter on goals by Kyle Donnery, James Gorman and Rob DiNota, with a Mike Matheson goal in between that kept CBA out in front,.
Most of the second period was quiet following Calkins’ third goal, but what happened late in the period was crucial. McCreary scored with 1:39 left, and O’Brien found the net just 1.8 seconds before the horn to extend the Brothers’ lead to 7-3 at the break.
A stellar CBA defense blanked the Wildcats for more than 17 minutes, and did its best work in the third quarter, when CBA was unable to get on the board. All that Westlake could manage was Gorman’s second goal.
So it was 7-4 with one period left, and the Brothers had a choice – either protect the lead, or put it away. It chose the latter option.
Augie Bonacci started the championship push when his goal with 9:36 left broke a mini-drought. Just 84 seconds later, O’Brien converted, and Calkins returnee for a fourth goal. In a matter of a few minutes, CBA’s margin had doubled, a blow from which the Wildcats could not recover.
Calkins would add a fifth goal with six minutes left and Bonacci would score again, too, while CBA’s defense limited Westlake to just one goal in each of the last two periods and then could savor its role in making some history at a school with plenty of it to go around.
