WEST ORANGE- It seems reasonable to figure 1-Seton Hall Prep and 2-Caldwell when the Essex County Lacrosse Tournament seeds its field for the 2024 Essex County Tournament next Wednesday (May 1).
And, if coach John Timan has his druthers, should those top two seeds meet once again in an ECT final, this time May 11 at Verona, then his Chiefs will have a redux so to speak when it comes to déjà vu all over again, at least in terms of performance level, when it comes to a regular season game vs. an ECT match vs. the mighty Pirates.
SHP (4-5) overcame an early 2-0 deficit to roar past Caldwell, 12-3, this past Tuesday, at Brendan P. Tevlin Memorial Field in the Kelly Athletic Complex.
While heading off the field following his team’s most recent setback to the Pirates, Timan was reminded about last season when after being crushed by SHP, 14-2, in their 2023 regular season meeting, that his Chiefs rebounded with gusto in the ECT final, giving the Pirates all they could handle before being edged, 4-3.
“Maybe that’s the plan,” Timan said with a chuckle when reminded of last year’s terrific turnaround by Caldwell from regular season drubbing to near upset of SHP in the ECT. “We were happy to be 8-0 coming into this game, and we thought we were handling them pretty well while settling in well defensively in the first quarter, but we all know that they have a lot of good players, it’s a game of runs and they got a couple of transition runs that became to much for us.
“So, we’ll see if we’re fortunate enough to see them again in the counties, but you just never know, and there are some other teams to watch as well.
“Montclair is dangerous and I was impressed with Livingston when we played them (9-8 Chiefs victory on April 20) so we’ll have to see how the ECT progresses this time around.”
Caldwell has knocked off Essex County rivals Montclair (7-5), West Essex (9-6) and Livingston, while also taking the lead in the Waterman Division standings with a solid team led by Bates College-bound senior attackman Jack Goldbach (18 goals, 18 assists), who is a terrific passer as well as a potent scorer; fellow senior attackman Matt Costigan (7 and 10), junior midfielder Sean Murtagh (13 and 4), senior long-stick middie Jack Gruzas (8 goals) and senior goalie Landon Pini (96 saves, 46 goals against).
Pini finished with 17 saves and played well vs. SHP in spite of the Pirates’ eventual goal-scoring barrage which included five unanswered goals in the first half.
The Chiefs had struck early on goals from Goldbach and Murtagh for their 2-0 lead, but it was all Pirates soon after that first quarter edge by the visitors.
SHP senior attackmen Tyler Juhlin, Brad Schuster and Christian Schweiger all had three goals apiece, while junior middie Nolan Sabel demonstrated crisp passing while finishing with 2 goals and 4 assists.
“We really try to play for each other and look to make that next pass, and with all the guys that we return there are any number of guys who can score for us,” said Sabel. “We’ve had some tough losses early on, but we’ve refocused and are not worrying about rankings.
“We know that we’re going to get every team’s best and that’s fine. We just have to play to the high standard that we’re capable of, and if we do that, we’ll be fine.” |
