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Mansquan Boys Lacrosse Wins Shore Conference Tournament Title By John Sorce

May 22, 2018

MANASQUAN – For the second straight year, the Warriors of Manasquan have claimed the title of Shore Conference Tournament champions in boys lacrosse.

The Warriors defeated top-seeded Christian Brothers Academy in a convincing 11-3 victory on Monmouth University’s Hesse Field on May 12, handing the Colts their first loss of the season.

“I think the boys, to their credit, played as good as I’ve seen them play in my time at Manasquan,” fourth-year head coach Sean Cunningham said. “They really played a perfect game and I don’t think anybody was going to beat us that day. The kids were just clicking and playing really well and that was certainly the right time to do it. It feels great to win that game and it feels great to win in the fashion we did. But more importantly, it’s nice to see the boys throw that type of game together and start to peak and gel at this time.”

It was a relatively easy road for Manasquan, who earned the second seed in the tournament. They powered past Lacey in the opening round, 21-4; Freehold Township in the second round, 16-2; and shut out Southern in the semifinals, 12-0. They outscored their opponents, 60-9, in the four games.

Squan dominated the game from the opening face-off, scoring the game’s first five goals. James Pendergist scored the first goal, followed by goals from Ryan Anderson, Casey Mulligan and James Mele late in the quarter. That was all they needed.

Anderson finished with four goals while Mulligan and Canyon Birch each had a pair. Mele, Pendergist and Mike Page each had one. Birch had three assists to finish with five points.

Manasquan and CBA, widely believed to be the top two teams in the Shore Conference, also played in the regular season, with CBA coming out on top by a score of 6-4. That game, Cunningham said, was a good defeat in a way for Manasquan.

“I think we were fortunate in regards to playing them the first time,” Cunningham said. “I think the loss was good for us in a sense that we could see what their game plan was and a lot of what they wanted to do. We were able to make adjustments and make some changes that helped us the second go-around.”

In the semifinals, Birch made Shore Conference history by setting the conference's single-season scoring record with his 98th goal to pass the previous mark of 93 set by Southern's Dylan Jinks in 2014. He is the only Shore Conference player to ever score 100 goals in a season and has 238 for his career, to go with 84 assists. And he’s still got another year left.

“He’s incredible,” Cunningham said. “You look at what he does just in terms of putting up points and he’s a record-breaking individual and it’s unpresented what he’s doing. He has 100 goals this season and we still have games to go. He’s very good and he really makes life easy. He makes huge plays when you need him to; he scores at a phenomenal clip and he makes everyone around him better as well because he has 42 assists to go along with 100 goals. When you have a guy like that, it’s a difference maker and we have several of them. When they’re clicking, it’s tough to stop them.”

Birch, who is committed to Army West Point, is one of five Division I recruits for Manasquan, and they are all juniors. Pendergist is going to Rutgers; Page is going to Syracuse; defenseman Jack Fabean is going to Richmond; and goalie Mike LaPoint is going to Siena.

Having arguably the best lacrosse player the state has ever seen, along with all the talented players around him, makes Cunningham’s job pretty easy. He is fortunate to coach such a talented group, and they hope to accomplish more before the season ends.

“I love doing this, but at the end of the day, it’s all about the boys and their experience with this,” Cunningham said. “I’m just happy to be along for the ride. It doesn’t matter how good of a coach you are, if you don’t have talented kids, you’re not going to win. I think these kids just make me look good.”