Several members of the North Hunterdon boys lacrosse team switched their numbers after an 0-2 start to the season.
Perhaps fittingly, junior attack Devin Merkle swapped from eight to four and promptly scored four goals, the first of his varsity career, to help the Lions earn their first win of 2024.
North Hunterdon rallied from 3-0 down early to defeat Phillipsburg 10-8 at the Phillipsburg Athletic Complex Tuesday afternoon.
“Starting 0-2, last year we started 0-3, it’s hard to start like that. We just have to dig deep,” Merkle said. “We want to win and that’s what we did. We really wanted it.”
Merkle scored four of the Lion’s first five goals to help them overcome an early 3-0 deficit.
The first came halfway through the first quarter when the junior dodged past a couple defenders and scored across goal.
After senior Sam Spagnuolo scooped up a ground ball in front of goal and found the cage to cut the deficit to 3-2, junior Jimmy Donnelly scored in a similar fashion at the other end to restore the Stateliners’ two-goal lead 3:45 into the second quarter.
Off feeds across goal from fellow juniors Colin Pettorsson and Trey Verderamo, Merkle scored two goals 28 seconds apart to tie the game at 4-4 in the final minutes of the first half.
“We like to just rotate it around, look in the crease, that’s our main goal. We dodge from top, look in the middle,” Merkle said. “I noticed, at the beginning of the game, that their slides, they slid early so it led to the crease being open for me and my teammates. That just led to us being open for goals.”
Off another feed across the face of the cage from Verderamo, Merkle scored his fourth and final goal from close range to give the Lions (1-2) their first lead of the game 2:18 into the second half.
“Very proud of him. I think those were his first points of the year too,” North Hunterdon first-year coach Gil Swenson said of Merkle. “It just came from off-ball movement from him, from the other guys, and them sharing the ball. We preach to them to let the ball do the work and get it moving.”
Donnelly tied the game at 5-5, and broke a goal drought that lasted nearly 12 minutes of game time for Phillipsburg (1-3), with a patient finish off a pass from junior Andrew Blackwell.
Pettorsson gave the Lions the lead for good with 3:45 left in the third quarter when he found the cage on a long-range shot that bounced in.
Brian Sampson, another junior, finished low from the slot off a feed from sophomore Jacob Parente before a series of quick passes culminated with Merkle assisting Spagnuolo to make it 8-5 in the final minute of the third.
“We talked about valuing possessions. When we do, our offense looks good. When we don’t, quick turnovers, things like that,” Swenson said. “These guys are still learning what we wanna be doing, how we wanna do it. Value possessions and things look good.”
Goals by Donnelly and junior Connor Johnson helped P’burg keep up in the fourth quarter, but turnovers killed the Stateliners chances of making a comeback. P’burg used both of its second-half timeouts in quick succession in the fourth quarter, only to quickly turn the ball over on a moving pick call and an errant pass.
“Near the end of the game, we controlled the faceoffs, we controlled the ball but we made some forces that really cost us this game late in the third quarter, early in the fourth,” Phillipsburg coach Shawn Rosa said. “Then we pressed in the fourth and just kinda ran out of horse power.”
Senior Cormac Flannagan scored a goal off a quick transition with 58 seconds left to pull the Stateliners to within 10-8 before Phillipsburg senior Patrick “Patch” Day, who won 17 of 21 faceoffs in the contest, won the final faceoff.
North Hunterdon junior goalie Alec Milne denied a shot by Flannagan for his 12th save of the game, then got to the loose ball before Donnelly near the cage and completed the clearance to seal the win.
“It kinda all went back to the fundamentals. You’re not really thinking, your mind is in the game and you’re just playing,” Milne said of the late sequence. “Saw the ball come down, I knew the game was close, just had to make the save. As I was bouncing around outside, I saw the opportunity to go out and hit the kid and put him down, picked the ball up.”
Merkle finished with four goals and one assist and Spagnuolo added three goals and one assist. Verderamo recorded three assists. The Lions host Morris Knolls Thursday afternoon.
“Everyone was locked in, it was good energy, good talk, it was just a good performance,” Milne said.
Donnelly recorded a hat trick while Flannagan and sophomore Ryan Evans each scored twice. P’burg hosts Freedom in a cross-state matchup Saturday morning.
“We got off to a good start. We got lucky with a couple goals early and that’s the start we wanted and I pushed for,” Rosa said. “We haven’t won back-to-back games in three years here at P’burg. Really trying to change the culture and the mentality. We let a few in and, defensively, we just looked slow today, a little sluggish.”
Desmond Boyle may be reached at [email protected].
