Williamson Stuns Defending National Champion West Chester

There are theories on whether you want to play the toughest team on your schedule, especially when that team is the defending National Collegiate Lacrosse League Division II national champions.  Some coaches would not want to play them early on, especially in the first game of the season.  Legendary Hall of Fame Williamson head coach Jim DeRose is not one of 'those' coaches.

"I like playing the best right out of the gate.  It gives us a chance to use that game as a measuring stick and find out where we are, and where we need to be."

On Wednesday night, before a large crowd at Kelly Field, Williamson found out exactly what it was made of, as the Mechanics came back from a 9-7 deficit with 11:24 left to stun the hosts on a goal by freshman Rob Wagner with 1:06 left, to give Williamson one of their biggest wins in recent history, 10-9.

"Our guys showed such heart.  They didn't panic when we fell behind.  They knew what we needed to correct.  They knew what we needed to do pull off the upset and they did it-plain and simple.  I could not be prouder of them or the staff," shared DeRose.

Williamson came out of the gate fired up and took it to the Golden Rams early on. The Mechanics on the strength of three first half goals by Matt Dickinson, and one each by Cooper Conroy, Sean Bohannan and Konnor Oreskovich, led 6-3 before West Chester scored with under a minute left in the first half to make it 6-4 at the half. 

Everyone at the game knew West Chester would come out fired up for the second half, and they did just that, outscoring Williamson 3-1 in that stanza to tie things up at 7-7 heading into the fourth quarter.

For those who remembered last year's Liberty division championship game between these two schools, the start of the fourth quarter started to look eerily similar to that game.  In last year's game, West Chester used a monster fourth period to break open a 5-5 tie game and went on to win that game 11-5.

Sure enough, the Golden Rams came out and scored the first two goals of the fourth quarter on Wednesday night to go up 9-7 however, THAT is there the similarities stopped!  Keeping their composure, Matt Dickinson got one of the goals back quickly, less than a minute later, before Sean Bohannan added his second goal at the 6:11 mark to tie things up at 9-9.

Williamson needed their defense to step things up and they did just that, shutting down West Chester and giving Williamson possession with 3:06 left.  The Mechanics then whittled down the clock until the 1:06 mark when freshman Rob Wagner fired in the go-ahead goal with 1:06 left.  West Chester had been dominant on face-offs the entire game but not this time, as Nick Burdumy did a great job on the final face-off and allowed Williamson to gain possession and essentially run out the clock to secure the win for Williamson.

Williamson's defense played a great game all evening, led by junior goalie Jack Welsh, who made 13 save, several of which were crucial. 

"Obviously, it is only one game into a long year, but our guys worked for this.  Our juniors and seniors were not happy with how last year ended and vowed that wouldn't happen again.  We still have a lot of lacrosse to play but I can't think of a better way to start the year.  Again, I could not be prouder of our entire team," closed DeRose.

Williamson plays their home opener next Wednesday night at 7:00 P.M. against Del Tech.