SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – Seventeen minutes into the season, the Wahconah boys lacrosse team had one goal to its name.
After four full quarters, Wahconah had 17 goals and a convincing road victory over Pope Francis.
Devin Lampron scored six times, and Caden Padelford had five goals and three assists in a 17-13 win for the 2021 Central/Western Massachusetts Division 3 Champions.
Early on, it looked like the Cardinals might be the first Western Mass team to get the better of Wahconah in a couple of years. In the fifth minute of the second quarter, Gage Sperlonga converted an assist from Rich Roy to give Pope Francis a 6-1 lead.
But Padelford answered a minute later with an assist from Billy O’Neill (three goals, two assists), and Wahconah was off and running, scoring 10 of the game’s next 11 goals.
“We knew it was going to be a sloppy first quarter, first half even because we haven’t had a lot of time playing on grass,” Padelford said. “We’ve been on tennis courts or in a gym playing with tennis balls for a while.
“That was our first real taste of action. All we had to do was wait for what opened up, and things eventually did.”
Coach Joe O’Neill said he expected his team to get off to a slow start for the same reasons as Padelford, but he added another explanation.
“Rope-a-dope,” O’Neill said with a smile. “We tend to be that team. I'm a big boxing and fight fan, so you’re going to take some punches, especially early on in the season. But it’s how you respond.”
After Padelford cut the five-goal deficit to four, Wahconah got two more goals from Lampron, the second with a flag on the field against the Cardinals that turned into a man-up opportunity that O’Neill converted to make it a one-goal game at 6-5.
The Cardinals snapped Wahconah’s four-goal run to go ahead by two with 3 minutes, 57 seconds left in the first half. But Pope Francis drew another penalty with 12 seconds left before half-time.
Wahconah ran off the rest of the clock without a shot, choosing to start the second half with the ball and the man advantage, and Padelford scored to open the third quarter and ignite a 6-0 run.
“That’s huge,” O’Neill said of Padelford’s goal to start the second half. “It’s absolutely huge. That’s why we’re holding the ball, making sure we were possessing the ball at the half so we didn’t have a faceoff scrum to start the second half.”
Not that Wahconah had much trouble when it did have a faceoff. Noah Poirier dominated that department all day, giving Wahconah more possessions and some opportunities for quick scores off the faceoff.
“Noah is a complete beast,” Padelford said. “It’s great to have him on our team. Strongest kid for his age that I’ve ever met. The kid’s an animal.”
Lampron tied the game at 7-7 with a man-up goal, and O’Neill scored with an assist from Poirier off a faceoff win just seven seconds later to give Wahconah its first lead at 8-7.
Padelford scored twice, and Rylan Padelford capped the 6-0 run with a goal to give his team a four-goal lead at 11-7.
The Cardinals got within three points a couple of times from there, but Wahconah started the fourth quarter with goals from Lampron, Caden Padelford and Rylan Padelford to take a six-goal lead with 9:15 left to play and never looked back.
Joe Massaro stopped eight shots to earn the win in goal for Wahconah, which now looks ahead to Tuesday night’s game at West Springfield, the opener in the Valley League and a step up for Wahconah, classified Division 4 in the state, against the D2 Terriers.
After developing into the best team in Berkshire County the last couple of years and dominating the area in last year’s COVID-shortened, travel-restricted regular season, Wahconah Saturday begins its first campaign without another county team on the schedule.
“Pope’s a great team,” O’Neill said of the opener. “They play in the [Pioneer] Valley. They’re competitive. And we in the past have done well against Valley teams. But we haven’t played down here consistently. Our ability to now come down here and play the best in Western Mass, consistently, is going to pay dividends for us.”
