High and dry after delay, Radnor leaves ‘Stoga in dust

SPRINGFIELD — Tuesday’s miserable weather only delayed the inevitable for the Radnor boys lacrosse team

Radnor and Conestoga resumed its suspended PIAA Class 3A semifinal Wednesday at Springfield. All Radnor had to do to advance was play one decent half and let its defense protect a three-goal lead.

Instead, it was closer to perfect in the second half, the result a 13-4 pummeling of the rival Pioneers. The Radnor boys will join the girls team — which also defeated Conestoga in the Class 3A semifinals — Saturday at West Chester East High School, the boys taking on Kennett in a rematch of an 11-3 Radnor win in the district playback round.

“Conestoga is a great team, but we’ve been waiting and we weren’t going to let rain or anything else get us unfocused,” Radnor goalie Robert Hobbs said. “When we were in the locker room, we easily could’ve been all bummed, like, ‘We had them, but now we have to come back here and play a new game with them.’ But, no, we were focused the whole time. We know they’re a great team, so we made sure we came out strong.”

Although Conestoga didn’t apply consistent pressure on net, Hobbs made several key stops in each half. He racked up nine saves and was aided by a strong defensive effort by seniors Carson Smith, Grant Pierce and Casey Ott, and junior Will Gallagher.

“Our coaches always preach, no matter what the score is, a 0-0 mentality,” Smith said. “Three goals (lead) is nothing. We were watching the Kennett-Garnet (Valley) game last night and we saw how quickly leads can disappear. We didn’t want to be that team that was up big and blew it. We’ve got a huge group of seniors that loves this team more than anything, so we all dialed in.”

Radnor held the Pioneers to one goal in the second half.

“I just wanted to bring energy today, just like yesterday, and be ready for anything,” Hobbs said. “I know I have a great defense in front of me and they helped me out a lot.”

As for the Radnor offense, Nick Lucchesi and Jack Murphy carried their hot starts into Wednesday. The fleet-footed Lucchesi scored his fourth and final tally less than four minutes into the second half to put Radnor ahead 8-4. Murphy found the back of the net twice Wednesday to give him a hat trick for the game.

“We put in a lot of hard work behind the scenes,” Lucchesi said. “A lot of the stuff you see out here is totally earned. Hanging out off the field, I think that’s a big part of it, too.”

Conestoga just couldn’t keep pace with Radnor’s explosive attack, which scored at least three goals in every period. The Pioneers also hurt themselves with turnovers and too many shots that went awry.

“Radnor took advantage of our mistakes. I thought we did really well on faceoffs (in the first half), but we just turned it over a lot,” Conestoga coach Brody Bush said. “We have a young team and that showed a little bit.”

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