The most anticipated lacrosse season in Bernard’s history lived up to all the hype. In recent years, Bernards Lacrosse has been a powerhouse, but has not been able to put the pieces together in winning a championship. Falling short in the last three years, everyone knew this year would be different.
To start, the senior class is going to go down as one of the best classes in history at Bernards. They have been playing together for over ten years, and nothing was going to stop them from winning a sectional title. They knew what they needed to do in order to be the first team in history to win. Senior Charlie Vaccaro said “We just had the drive to get better every single day. Whether it’s hitting the weight room,getting out to get some shots in, we didn’t make excuses, we just made up our minds that we were not going to let anyone outwork us”.
To add onto this, it was also Coach Brothers last year. This was even more motivation for this team to push through and win a state championship.
The season started off on a high note continuing throughout the entire season. The mountaineers two losses both came to Pingry. One during the regular season in overtime, and one in the county championship by two. Both games were extremely competitive. The losses were motivating for the team, Senior Charlie Hunnewell said, “Pingry being our only two regular season losses really put a chip on all of our shoulders,forced us to regroup and reassess what we can do to continue to progress so that we can achieve our ultimate goal”
After the county final game, there has been no turning back. The mountaineers were nothing but dominant during the rest of the season, earning them the number one seed in the group one south.
The boys started their dominating playoff run with a 21-1 win on senior day. They then took care of Johnson 16-2 and New Providence 8-3 to lead them to the sectional championship against Rumson. After losing last year to them, everyone wanted revenge. Caden Kirst going into it said, “It was nerve racking, I was ready though and I knew the team was ready for that game, I knew the only way they could win is if we gave them a chance.” After a back and forth game, the mountaineers saw themselves down two with a minute twenty left. This was no issue for the mountaineers offense. Off a timeout, David Brothers scored right away to cut the lead to one.
Then with 20 seconds left off a failed clearance, Finn Vaccaro stole it and put it away in an empty net to tie the game. The first overtime came around and it was a defensive stand. The second overtime came around and after a few minutes Logan Stevens put away the game winner to lead the Mountaineers to their first ever sectional title.
The Mountaineers then went on to play Mountain Lakes in the group one finals. They completely dominated winning 13-5 leaving no doubt they are the best team in group one.
The boys season came to an end, losing in the Kirst Cup Semifinals to Westfield 13-8. This was an incredible year for the school and the senior class. All the hardwork and dedication payed off giving the boys lacrosse team the most successful season in history.
