Upper Dublin saw its successful season come to end in Saturday’s PIAA 2A quarterfinal game against Mars. The game also marked the final game of coach Pat Lacon’s eight-year tenure at the helm as he informed his team after the game that he was stepping down. (Photo courtesy of Tracy Valko. To view a complete gallery, visit the photo gallery.)
PIAA Class 2A quarterfinal
#7-1 Mars 10, #1-2 Upper Dublin 8
The ending was not what they’d hoped for. Or, for that matter, expected.
Especially after the Flying Cardinals – who led 3-2 at halftime – opened up a 5-2 lead in the third quarter, but the Fightin’ Planet responded with a 7-0 tear to take a lead (9-5) they would not lose.
“We were up 5-2 and then we had a string of just tough, tough errors,” UD coach Pat Lacon said. “And what I mean by tough errors – it was so hot. The heat had a major impact.
“There was a time when I was like, ‘Should I call timeout? Should I not call timeout?’ Hindsight is always going to be 20/20, and they scored with four seconds left in the third quarter. That was another backbreaker, but we battled right back, and we made it a game.”
Mars led 7-5 after three quarters and opened up a 9-5 lead before the Cardinals rallied to make it a 9-8 game, but that’s as close as they would get.
“It was a string of unfortunate events, but overall, it was a very good, evenly matched game,” Lacon said. “I wish we would have capitalized earlier and maybe a little bit more, but it just didn’t go our way.”
Matthew Shohen’s four-goal effort led the Cardinals. Ben Shervin’s 16-save effort anchored the defense.
Adding to the emotion of Saturday’s season-ending loss was the fact that Lacon informed his team he was stepping down from a job that had been his since he was notified eight years ago – while on his honeymoon in Hawaii – that he had landed the job.
“Ever since then, it’s been a family affair,” Lacon said. “During that time, I’ve had three kids – one was born during lacrosse season, which was always exciting, but I’ve always made a conscious effort to include both families – the lacrosse family and my own personal family. I’ve hosted the seniors every year for dinner, so they get to meet my own kids, and my kids get to meet the players that I spend so much time with.
“I’ve got a seven-year-old, a five-year old and a two-year old, and it was getting really hard to balance the amount of time that I wanted to be with them and the amount of time I wanted to be with the team.
“You marry both of them together, and you miss stuff. You either miss your own players’ events or your miss your kid’s baseball games and soccer games or art shows. I just really had to make that final decision of it’s time to be a dad right now.”
By the numbers: Upper Dublin: Tristen McNichol (1G), Michael Pileggi (1A), Matthew Shohen (4G), Nate Brown (1G, 1A), Chase Foster (2G), Ben Shervin (16 Saves)
Upper Dublin coach Pat Lacon:
--The season: We talk a lot about making sure that we continue to grow, and that growth happens when you are challenged and at times you are going through uncomfortable situations, and our season started was being thrown into the pressure cooker (the Cards dropped three of four to open the season against a killer non-league schedule), and as the season goes on, your identity starts to show itself, and we begin to figure out who we are.
“Our growing pains started to get less and less, and our leaders started to grab the bull by its horns, and after multiple messages to the kids reminding them that our goal is to always to leave the jersey in a better place and our legacy lives on from the guys that played before us and will continue to live on with the guys that play after us - I think that was something special that we all can have.”
--Saying good-bye: “It was very hard, and I got this idea from my experience at La Salle – we have the seniors line up on the sideline, and we have an opportunity for the whole team to say their good-byes. When you are walking through – and the coaches walk through towards the end, you kind of stop and you remind each player how much they’ve left an impact on you as a coach but also within the program. There was a major message that I continued to say over and over again – as you are seeing the tears fall from the seniors’ faces – is that they have left such a positive impact on the guys that are playing or will continue to play after them, and if the team continues to grow and show resiliency and get better and makes it further deep into the state playoffs in the future, it’s because of what those guys have laid in that foundation.”
--Reflections on leaving: “I had certain goals I wanted to achieve. Winning was never one of them. I am a firm believer from my training and my mentors that winning comes from the hard work and the standards and building blocks you set along the way. One of those building blocks is creating lifelong bulletproof relationships, and sometimes things don’t go super smooth, and others click right away. And when you are able to motivate kids to their limit and beyond their limit sometimes, really good things happen, and they become tighter, they become better people. They learn about who they are and what they can do and what they can accomplish, and this season was definitely one of them where we did hard things together, and it spoke volumes. I know our record isn’t always going to be 21-0 or 22-0, but I think we learned we can overcome any challenge that faced our way.”
Upper Dublin closed its season with the SOL American Conference championship (9-0) and a District 1 2A runner-up finish before falling to Mars in the quarterfinals of the PIAA 2A Tournament.
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