Great Valley Overwhelms West Chester East for the 17-1 Win

The good news for West Chester East's boys lacrosse team during Thursday night's game at Great Valley was that junior Patrick Whalen scored a goal with 2:03 left in the first half.

The bad news: The Patriots countered Whalen's goal with 17 of their own, including 12 during the first 24 minutes of the game, to post a 17-1 Ches-Mont League victory over the Vikings.

The Patriots came out firing and never stopped. Although it seemed as if they scored from every position, they didn't but applied continuous pressure on the Vikings defense even after making wholesale changes in the second half.

The floodgates opened at 7:11 of the first quarter when Greg Merrill threw in an uncontested shot to give the Pats a 1-0 lead. Merrill would end up with a hat trick after just 12 minutes of play, scoring Great Valley's third goal (6:31) and seventh goal (2:00). In between, Eric Gartner made it 2-0 at 6:46 and Noah Joseph hit at 4:53 to push the edge to 4-0.

Timmy Lamb beat WCE goalie Kevin Greene—who would eventually allow all 17 goals—at 5:38 (5-0) then Jeremy Salmon found the back of the net at 2:52. Gartner would allow Great Valley to have an 8-0 lead after one quarter when he scored at the 1:06 mark.

On offense, the Vikings (1-9) could not get things untracked. In fact, in the first quarter, West Chester East would have the ball just three times.

Dan Buchholz got the ninth goal 18 seconds into the second quarter, then Salmon took a pass from Merrill at 6:39 and the Patriots had a 10-0 lead. Peter Pappas proceeded to pick up a loose ball and raced pretty much unscathed to the net, flicking it in at 4:27 for the 11th tally. Buchholz ended the first half barrage with his second goal of the quarter, and the halftime intermission saw the Pats feeling comfortable ahead 12-1.

Great Valley has had a field day against West Chester schools in the past week. Tuesday, they thumped Rustin by an 18-3 final. By the time Thursday ended, they would outscore two county seat teams in three days by a difference of 35-4.

With a running clock during the second half, the Patriots shuffled players in and out but the result was the same.

Again, they started the third quarter with another quick strike by the Pats, as Bobby Ashman zipped a ball into the net only 48 seconds after the break, and it was 13-1. Fast-forward a whole 40 seconds and there was Tom Belmont standing in front of the goal and winging home score number 14 for the evening.

Mack Hasz got the lead to 15-1 at 5:03, and the third quarter ended 16-1 after Belmont netted his second goal of the quarter.

The fourth quarter featured one goal and one laughable moment for the Patriots. R.J. Digiallorenzo tossed home the final goal at 11:02. But it actually could have been worse for the Vikings as at the 7:20 mark, Robbie Hahn broke loose and headed for goal. Just as he shot, the Patriot coaches called a timeout and the goal was disallowed.

A total of 11 different Great Valley players scored goals: Merrill, 3; Salmon, Belmont, Buchholz and Gartner, 2; and 1 each from Ashman, Pappas, Hasz, Digiallorenzo, Joseph and Lamb.