HEMPSTEAD – Getting to the ultimate prize once is special. Doing it twice in a row is even more so.
That’s what the Baldwinsville boys lacrosse team has achieved, now proud owners of back-to-back state Class A championships after the Bees turned back Farmingdale 8-5 in Sunday’s state title game at Hofstra University on Long Island.
It was on this same field exactly one year ago that B’ville earned the program’s first-ever state crown. Repeating required a full year’s worth of work and dedication knowing that every opponent would have an extra level of motivation to take the Bees down.
Few did, though, and in the post-season the Bees would constantly impose its will through timely scoring and consistent work on defense, all of which characterized the title game.
Both teams were less than 48 hours removed from hard-fought state semifinals – B’ville over PIttsford 7-6, Farmingdale over Scarsdale 9-5 – and how they bounced back from it would go a long way toward determining who won here.
Seasoned in a state title game, the Bees needed less than two minutes to get on the board with Dylan Wirtheim doing the honors, only to have the Dalers’ Sal Possilico answer to even it up 1-1, where it stayed for a while.
Caden Lennon gave Farmingdale what turned out to be its only lead late in the first quarter, but it didn’t last long as Keegan Lynch scored to pull B’ville back even and it went to the second period level at 2-2.
Nearly half the second period elapsed before the Bees reclaimed the lead on Carson Dyl’s goal and, less than three minutes later, made it 4-2 when Lynch converted for the second time.
The Dalers cut the margin to one when Posillico nabbed his second goal, but Dyl answered to make it 5-3, where it stayed until well into the third quarter, where with two goals in a span of 49 seconds, Farmingdale pulled back even, 5-5, Chris Bergeron getting the tying goal.
Again, though, the Bees responded well, putting all of its components together for a closing drive that the Dalers could not answer.
Ryan Quinn converted with 58.2 seconds left in the third period to give B”ville the lead for good. Barely a minute into the fourth quarter, Garrett Sutton made it 7-5, a particularly sweet goal given that Sutton missed the 2022 state title run due to a knee injury.
As it had done so much during the season, Brayden Penafeather-Stevenson, Greg Marinelli, Pat Otts, goalie Nick Cary (who stopped 12 of the 17 shots he faced) and the rest of B’ville’s defense kept the Dalers quiet for much of the final period just when it needed to answer.
What was most fitting was that Lynch, one of the team’s unquestioned leaders, closed it out, completing his hat trick with 6:33 to play and adding a fourth goal in the next-to-last minute as, once again, the Bees could celebrate a climb to the pinnacle.
