DALTON, Mass. – Jacob Thomas scored five goals, and the Wahconah boys lacrosse team scored 10 of the game’s last 11 goals Friday to earn a 16-8 win over South Hadley in the semi-finals of the Western Massachusetts Class B Tournament.
The victory sends Wahconah (13-5) into Tuesday’s regional final at Berkshire Community College against No. 2 East Longmeadow, a 15-14 winner when the teams met in Dalton on May 6.
Top-seeded Wahconah, which beat South Hadley handily twice in the regular season, was either behind or tied most of the game.
Peyton Marion scored in transition from Owen Dawson (three goals, one assist) in the final minute of the first half to give South Hadley a 5-4 lead going into the break after a low-scoring first half.
“The message at half-time was, ‘We’ve been here before. We’ve been down at half many times before,’ “ Wahconah coach Matt Fisher said. “I told them it was on them to find the fire within themselves. Someone has to be a leader. Someone has to take accountability.
“It took a little bit of rowdiness in the middle of the game, but they found it and we finished well.”
Fisher said he could not pinpoint any individual players for taking on that leadership mantle.
“I think the defense as a whole,” he said. “They were sliding better. They were picking up ground balls better. Our offense was actually shooting away from the goalie.
“I would say everybody excelled in the second half.”
The first half was not the type of game Fisher expected from his team, which beat the Tigers by scores of 16-4 and 20-10 in the regular season.
This time around, South Hadley was able to control the game by limiting the number of possessions for each team, methodically working the ball around before looking for an opening against Bryce Smith (eight saves) and the Wahconah defense.
“Honestly, a lot of credit to South Hadley,” Fisher said. “Their game plan at the beginning shook us. They held the ball for long possessions. Our offense wasn’t used to that.
“A lot of credit over there. They had a great game plan. Once our guys got used to it, we got more and more comfortable.”
Rylan Padelford (four goals, two assists) scored in the second minute of the second half to tie the game, 6-6, but the Tigers took one more lead before Thomas scored to tie it. 7-7.
The game turned when a South Hadley player took a two-minute locked penalty with 4 minutes, 23 seconds left in the third quarter.
Less than a minute later, Sawyer Padelford scored with an assist from Jon Howard. Then Rylan Padelford gave Wahconah its second goal of the man-up chance for its first two-goal lead of the game, 9-7, with 2:26 left in the quarter.
Wahconah went on to get another goal from Howard (five assists) to end the third up, 10-7.
The Tigers got one goal back early in the fourth, but Wahconah finished on a 6-0 run that concluded when Zachary Flaherty scored with an assist from Rylan Padelford with just more than two minutes left.
Wahconah now turns its attention to East Longmeadow, a team it beat last year in the Class B semi-finals.
“They beat us early [this] year, so we’ll be looking for a revenge game,” Fisher said. “But there’s also a target on our back being the No. 1 team. So we’ve got to come fired up and ready to play.”
