Perrysburg won its first Northern Lakes League boys lacrosse championship since 2017 with a thrilling 9-8 overtime victory against visiting Anthony Wayne last Thursday, and the Yellow Jackets of first-year head coach Marc Blanchard are hoping to parlay this achievement into future success for the program.
The Jackets resumed play this season after finishing 5-10 overall in 2019.
When senior midfielder Collin Fredrickson scored the game-winning goal with 1 minute and 13 seconds left in overtime, his sudden-victory tally to beat the rival Generals set off a spirited celebration. Included were Fredrickson’s delirious teammates and much of a Perrysburg student section that stormed the field at Steinecker Stadium.
“It was out of a timeout,” Fredrickson said of the goal. “Jake Beard had the ball in the alley and kind of just skip-passed it to me. I had [AW's] Ty Grooms on me, and I know that he's a really good defensive midfield.
“I just made sort of a dodge and went the other way. I saw a screen that was setting for me, and I just threw the ball.”
Fredrickson's shot found the goal from straight on and about 12 yards out.
“Being able to have a memory like that is great,” he said. “I'm never going to forget that, especially with the people I play with. It's amazing.”
That goal enabled the Yellow Jackets (11-2 overall, 7-1 NLL) to reach two of the three team goals they had set for themselves prior to the season and avenged a 9-6 league loss at AW three weeks earlier.
“We were down by two goals at two points in that game,” Blanchard said. “We got up 8-7, and they tied it to force overtime. The kids found a way to buckle down and get it done. It was a really good game. Anthony Wayne is a really well-coached team with a lot of good players.”
The best part of the finish, according to Blanchard, was the jubilation it caused.
“The kids went absolutely crazy,” he said. “Collin threw off his helmet, and all the kids just threw their stuff all over the place. They were really excited. It was the best lacrosse atmosphere I've ever seen at a northwest Ohio lacrosse game.
“We had a couple hundred people there, and we had a student section. The students rushed the field. Some people told me it looked like a Friday night football game. When you can say that about lacrosse in northwest Ohio, that's a big compliment. It was an awesome night for those kids.”
On the season, Perrysburg has combined an explosive offense with a solid defense.
Sophomore attacker Cameron Davidson ranks among the top 10 scorers in Ohio with 45 goals and 23 assists for 68 total points in 13 games.
Senior midfielders Trent Lincoln (37-10, 47 points) and Frederickson (28-4, 32 points) add firepower, as do two juniors – midfielder Tyler Yager (20-16, 36 points) and attacker Steven Speer (25-10, 35 points).
“I've been on the varsity since my freshman year,” Lincoln said. “I would say a lot of us have put trust within each other, and our coaching staff has upped their game with creating better offensive and defensive styles to run against other teams. Our chemistry as a team is a lot stronger than what it used to be.
“Basically, we've cut down on penalties, and we consistently fight for ground balls. We slow down to get settled and set up our offense. That has been a key. We're also better at clearing the ball to get it back on the offensive side so we can go attack the goal.”
On defense, sophomore Ethan Johnson and the junior trio of Brody May, Grant Perry, and Will Blanchard (Marc's son) compose a stingy foursome. Johnson leads the team in caused turnovers with 35.
“This is the best defense we've had since I've been watching Perrysburg lacrosse,” Blanchard said. “It's cool to watch our offense go up against our defense in practice. If the offense can beat the defense, they gain confidence, and vice versa.”
In the all-important area of faceoffs, senior Luke Jaco has been a valuable asset, winning 75 percent (158 of 211) of them on the season,. He had a state single-game record 100 percent (16-of-16) faceoffs won in an NLL win over Bowling Green.
On the back end, Perrysburg has alternated two goalies, with senior Ethan Cook and junior Beau Craig, and the lineup rotation has been ably rounded out by senior midfielders Dillon Esper, Adam Schmidbauer and Bassim Atassi, and junior midfielders Joe Conley and Gunnar Daler.
“The group we have now has been playing together for so long, and the energy is there,” Fredrickson said. “We have a new coaching staff that really really got us excited for this season. All of that combined worked out really well.”
Besides the NLL title, the other feel-good story of the season for the Jackets has been the comeback of senior captain Jake Beard, who was expected to be one of Perrysburg's top scorers entering the season.
Beard sustained a fracture to his left hand after scoring four goals in the team's 11-8 season-opening win over Olmsted Falls on March 19, an injury that required surgery. He was cleared to resume last Thursday, and scored three goals of the Jackets' nine goals in the win over AW.
Blanchard, who had previously coached for several years at the youth and junior-high levels of the Perrysburg lacrosse program, credits his staff of assistants for installing the tactical schemes the team has utilized.
Baily Weatherwax and Ring Lardner, who had each played at Defiance College before that school dropped its lacrosse program, are the team's offensive coordinators.
The defensive coordinator is Tommy McMaster, a former lacrosse standout at Denison University who is currently in medical school at the University of Toledo Medical Center, the former Medical College of Ohio. The goalie coach is Perrysburg grad George Brown.
“I give a ton of credit to our [assistant] coaches,” Blanchard said. “We've got guys with college playing experience, and I kind of get out of the way and let them do their thing when it comes to our schemes.
“We knew what we had coming back, and we completely changed our offensive profile. They were used to playing a very basic 2-3-1 type of offense going back to their youth and middle-school days. We brought in more of a college high-level type of offense, with a 1-4-1.”
Blanchard said the Jackets took a few games to get used to the new offense, but eventually things clicked.
“Our 1-4-1 offense has been a key because a lot of the other teams play a 2-3-1,” Fredrickson said. “What we were doing is different. Getting everyone moving is what really helped.”
Whether the Yellow Jackets will reach their third season goal – winning a state tournament game – is to be determined.
What this team has achieved is part of a bigger objective for the program — being northwest Ohio’s top team. But it started with the first steps this season.
“We wanted the kids to rally around a common goal,” Blanchard said. “We have a really strong senior class. They're a tight-knit group, and they do a good job of making sure that our culture is one that includes everybody and is without cliques.
“For a lot of these seniors, the first time they were coming out to play [varsity] was last year and the season got canceled because of COVID. They really came to work this year. They realized how much they missed high school lacrosse, and really appreciated being out there.”
This appreciation culminated in a title.
“This team has shown that, if you trust everyone within your team and get that chemistry going, and believe in your coaches, that anything can be accomplished,” Lincoln said.
“When I look at the future and what we have with our youth pipeline, we're getting better,” Blanchard said. “We're going to have 25 eighth-graders come up next year, and most of those kids have been playing for a while. I don't think we're far off.”
First Published May 3, 2021, 10:07 p.m.