Saints Peter & Paul halts Curley’s four-peat bid in B Conference lacrosse

by Nelson Coffin 

Saints Peter & Paul’s lacrosse team was raring to go this spring, considering that the Sabres welcomed back a slew of starters from last year’s MIAA B Conference runners-up.

That said, getting past three-time defending champion Archbishop Curley was going to be a tall order. After all, things didn't go well for the Eastern Shore squad in an 18-9 setback in the 2024 title game.

Moreover, when the teams clashed in mid-April in Easton, the Friars prevailed, 10-7.

Senior attackman Noah Zimmerman, who produced a game-high five goals for the Sabres, said that Curley had a good game plan in both of those encounters.

“We were pretty banged up,” he said about this season’s first meeting with the Friars. “So it was pretty hard to go against it. But then we got healthy as the year went on and today we were able to execute just how we practiced the last two weeks getting ready for this game.”

Despite that loss, in the two-hour, 12-minute weather-delayed title game on Friday at Towson University’s Johnny Unitas Stadium, the Sabres showed just how much they learned from being on the big stage last spring by overcoming an early third-quarter deficit to down the top seeds, 11-9.

Saints Peter & Paul coach Freddie Wolters said that his young 2024 team had never been on the big stage before facing a senior-laden Crurley squad.

“This year, we’re back, and we’ve got a little bit of experience,” he added. “We grew from it, and I think they lost 17-18 seniors. So that’s a little different.”

Saints Peter & Paul (14-7, 8-1 league) started the game on a 3-0 run fueled by goals from Zimmerman, junior midfielder JJ Rardin and sophomore attackman Andrew Steinhardt.

Curley (11-6, 7-2) began to claw back after a sluggish start when junior midfielder Matt Ramirez sandwiched a pair of goals between Zimmerman’s second tally to make it, 4-2, at the end of the opening period.

Zimmerman helped the Sabres maintain a three-goal cushion early in the second quarter by notching two more goals around one by Curley senior attackman Brandon Mejia.

The Friars cut the lead to 6-5 after junior midfielder Aiden Palinkas rifled in a feed from sophomore midfielder Xavier Duvall and Ramirez cashed in during a one-minute full-serve situation.

It could have been worse if the Saints Peter & Paul hadn’t come up with the ensuing face-off to kill the rest of the penalty.

Freshman longstick Cole Phillip gobbled up that ground ball and made several other key plays during the contest.

“A freshman, playing the biggest game of his life, comes and wins on a man-down,” Walters said. “ That sparked us, and then we started going back and doing fundamentals.

Even with the rookie’s heroics in mind, Curley still was able to grab its only lead of the game, 7-6, early in the third quarter on two quick goals by Mejia and senior attackman Ryan Kenney.

The resilient Sabres, though, responded by netting a pair of extra-man goals by freshman attackman Mason Roland and Zimmerman during a non-releasable penalty to go back on top, 8-7, with 6:21 remaining in the period.

The backbreaker for Curley came when Steinhardt stretched the lead to 9-7 with just three second left in the third.

When Rardin fed Roland for a goal before scoring one himself to build an 11-7 cushion with 7:34 left in regulation, the Sabres were in a terrific position to earn the program’s first B crown since winning three straight from 2012-2014.

“We just stuck to the game plan,” Zimmerman said. “We knew they were going to slide quick to JJ, our best player, and we just capitalized off that. We were connecting on all cylinders.”

Curley went down swinging, getting goals from sophomore midfielder Xavier Duvall and Ramirez to halve the deficit late in the quarter.

The Friars were threatening to inch even closer until Saints Peter & Paul junior goalie Hank Wolters secured his 10th save of the game with just over a minute to go to scrap any hope of a miraculous comeback.

“We’re a little disappointed,” Curley coach Matt Ogle said. “We have a good culture at Curley, and we want to win every game. But the Sabres were just a better team tonight. They shot the ball better and we hurt ourselves at times. Hats off to them. They did a great job and they deserve it. But, yeah, we had a great year.”