Friars 4-Peat Over Chaminade Lacrosse in Championship

The streak continues.

Seeking to end a 4 year drought in the NSCHSAA lacrosse and keep their perfect league record intact, the varsity lacrosse team fell short yet again Thursday night at Hofstra University’s Shuart Stadium 8-6.

It’s gotten to be a serious repeat of history as for the second consecutive year was in the regular season only to . Prior to that the Friars had split the regular meetings between the two arch-rivals, also claiming the titles.

“We were the defending champs, we have nothing to lose, they have everything, we knew  we were going to pull it out in the end and they thought they had us and it just shows who works harder,” Friar junior midfielder Dylan Molloy said. “We said the whole season May 24 is what mattered.”

Being literally in a class by themselves, Chaminade and St. Anthony’s automatically go to the ‘AAA’ final together, regardless of record – which incidentally was unmarred for the Flyers in the conference going into the final. For the latter, it meant another time to shine, putting the final stamp on a dynastic performance that was last achieved by their archrivals from 2005-2008.

Midway through the second quarter Chaminade goalie Daniel Fowler’s name was being chanted – by the Friar fanbase. Fowler had made only 9 saves on the night, something not up to his usual brick-wall performance and evident during warmups as teammates repeatedly got shots through to the net.

The Friars kept finding holes as Chaminade kept trying to plug them, the equivilent of playing the role of the little Dutch boy jamming his fingers in the dyke. Even a natural hat trick by senior midfielder Matthew Graham to tie it at six only held back the Friars for so long as Molloy made a jumpshot after snagging a pass from Matt Koerner that sailed through the Flyer defense.

“That’s one of my favorite shots,” Molloy said. “I always take advantage of that, especially on a lefty goalie. We practice that shot.”

Contrast Fowler to the other man between the pipes, Eric Caliendo, who had stepped into the net as a replacement for Kieran Burke (out due to illness) and is having honors heaped upon him in the days before his graduation: A future Harverford graduate, class valedictorian and with 17 saves, championship MVP.

There’s a reason he wears the No. 1 on his jersey.

“You want him to marry your daughter in 10 years,” St. Anthony’s coach Keith Wieczorek said. “Eric came in in a tough situation this year and did an unbelievable job filling in. He’s just gotten better each week. Tonight was his coming out party.”

And it’s because of that the Friars have that same distinguishment as the gold number on his black jersey.