Peters Township hands Seneca Valley 11-7 defeat
JACKSON TWP — Seneca Valley proved to be a game opponent, but undefeated Peters Township flexed its muscle one too many times Friday night.
The Raiders were trailing just 5-4 late in the third quarter of Friday's boys lacrosse game at NexTier Stadium. But the Indians scored four times in the span of just three minutes and 14 seconds on their way to an 11-7 WPIAL Division I win.
The defeat drops SV to 4-5 overall, but coach Lance Diamond saw many bright spots in his team's play.
“We showed we can play in a big game,” he said. “I'm taking several positives out of this game.”
SV's Derek Finney scored his team's fourth goal of the game with 6:46 remaining in the third period. It took Peters Township a while to answer, but once it did, it came in a flurry.
Two goals by junior Ryan Kruppa were sandwiched around a tally from Andrew Rao. All three goals came in the final 1:56 of the third to give the Indians (11-0) an 8-4 edge with one quarter left.
The Raiders battled back and received three goals from senior Cole Fyock in the fourth period, the second of which made it 9-6 with 6:11 on the clock.
Rao responded by finding the net twice in the span of 16 seconds and SV was unable to threaten down the stretch.
In all, the Indians managed 37 shots to Seneca's 14.
“Most of our top players on offense are underclassman,” said Peters coach Mike McBride. “So we diagram everything and set up certain shots for certain players. It's not the way I usually do things, but it's worked out well for us.”
Face-offs and turnovers proved to be a problem for the Raiders for much of the night.
“We had been doing well with face-offs, but just didn't execute tonight,” said Diamond. “The turnovers, we have been struggling with them and it's something we have to clean up moving forward.”
The Indians opened the game by taking an early 2-0 lead on goals from Connor Pike and Derek Bacchiochi. Fyock and Tanner Pfeffer answered for the Raiders and the game was tied at 2-all late in the first quarter.
“We got that two-goal lead and I think we started slipping,” said McBride. “Seneca Valley is the defending (WPIAL) champ and you can't do that against them. We knew they would keep it close.”
Cody Sheetz scored for the Indians with just seven seconds left in the first quarter and the only goal of the second period belonged to Peters' Mario Toscano as the Indians held a 4-2 edge at halftime.
Fyock scored five of SV's seven goals.
“He hadn't scored that many goals coming into this game,” said Diamond, “but that is the type of performance we need from a senior captain.”
Paul Cundiff had eight saves for the Raiders, while John Smith stopped four shots in net for the Indians.
