It's the new stars vs. old guard in Bergen County boys lacrosse final
· Yahoo Sports
It’s the rising stars vs. the old guard.
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That’s the backdrop for the Bergen County boys lacrosse championship, where the youngest Ridgewood team in more than a decade steps onto a stage Don Bosco has owned since the pandemic. Faceoff is scheduled for 6 p.m. Saturday at Mahwah High School (Weather-permitting).
Ridgewood last won a county title in 2019 and reached three straight finals from 2022-24. The Maroons clinched another shot at the crown with a 12-3 win over St. Joseph.
Don Bosco is winners of five straight county titles and seven overall. The Ironmen moved on with a 16-10 win over Bergen Catholic, leaning on a lineup with eight senior starters plus senior FOGO William Lugo.
The matchup ahead comes with recent history: Don Bosco beat Ridgewood 13-4 on April 29 in a Gibbs Division battle.
“It was terrible,” Ridgewood goalie Ben Wilday said. “I think the worst I've ever felt after a game this year. That's only fuel.”
“We played really well that first time,” Don Bosco defenseman Aidan Kang said. “It's just a matter of playing to the level that we can play, focusing on us, and executing the small things.”
Below is how each team advanced.
No. 1 Ridgewood 12, No. 5 St. Joseph 3
The Maroons (10-3) are usually too deep, too seasoned, too senior‑driven to let players without a driver’s license shape the direction of their season. But this spring, the words youth and Ridgewood boys lacrosse belong in the same sentence. Freshman Jax Monte and sophomore Will LoSauro have become central pieces of the offense, and they delivered again on May 7.
Monte scored three goals. LoSauro chipped in three. Sophomore Ryan Laffey added one. All three start. So does freshman midfielder Ryan Chang. Sophomore Ryan Inzerillo went 10‑for‑19 on faceoffs. And together, they’ve given Ridgewood at least a share of the Gibbs Division title.
"It's been really fun," Monte said. "It gets us really close, and we'll have a great future because we're all just building up our chemistry with these young guys on this team."
Monte and Will LoSauro have already reached 25 points – something no pair of Ridgewood underclassmen has done in more than 15 years.
Yet the Maroons are also powered by veterans who know exactly what this stage demands – including senior AJ LoSauro, who scored his 100th career goal in the semifinal. The Penn State commit finished with three goals, three assists, and a ride so physical it drove Jason Lake well onto the sideline for a turnover.
If that wasn’t enough, the older LoSauro brother set up another strike the hard way, emerging with a ground‑ball win from a dogpile in front and spotting Monte for a goal.
“He’s just super shifty,” Wilday said. “He gets super low. Especially at X, he can make guys trip over the goal posts. And then he can get a quick shot off as well.”
Ridgewood smothered the Green Knights with a defensive performance that made life easy for Wilday. He finished with 10 saves, many of them clean looks thanks to a defense that forced St. Joseph into rushed, low‑percentage shots.
“I think my defense did a really good job of not giving me any shots in the crease,” Wilday said. “I saw a lot of step‑downs, the most step‑downs I think I’ve seen in any game. When I have that room and time and can really see the ball, I can save it.”
And now, Ridgewood gets another shot at the team that handed it one of its toughest losses of the season.
“We kind of took that personally,” Monte said. “It should be a really good game.”
No. 2 Don Bosco 16, No. 3 Bergen Catholic 10
Don Bosco (9-5) entered the semifinals with a streak to protect and a point to prove. It left with both intact.
The Ironmen beat Bergen Catholic for the 11th straight time, a run that began in the 2019 state playoffs, and advanced to their sixth straight county final behind four hat tricks – Brady Kushner, Evan Kang, Dash Lane and Hudson Villaruel.
“It's good to keep the streak alive,” senior captain Aidan Kang said. “We talked about that pregame, just kind of honoring the alumni who came before us, keeping that streak alive. And it was a good win.”
Bergen Catholic trailed just 8-5 at halftime and cut the deficit to 12-9 in the third on an Easton Tedesco goal. But Don Bosco responded with four straight to ease the tension at Granatell Stadium.
“We started off a little slow, but I think after the first quarter, the offense was just moving the ball well,” Evan Kang said after his first taste of the rivalry. “We're looking for our teammates and just working as a team.”
The Ironmen have now won six straight games, including their four highest‑scoring outings of the season. The turning point came after an upset loss to Northern Highlands on April 18 – a defeat that triggered a players‑only meeting the following Monday.
Held inside a classroom for a half-hour before practice, the captains – Aidan Kang, John Devir, Declan McInerney and William Lugo – confronted what had gone wrong. They talked about culture, about expectations, about the danger of believing the preseason hype. They talked about little things like not cutting corners during practice jogs.
Assistant coach Frank Lugo said the tempo in practice has been “completely different since then.”
“[The message] was on being selfless, focusing on being good teammates, on playing for the brothers on your left and right,” Aidan Kang said. “We want to focus on playing to the standard that we discussed and listening to what the coaches say."
"All those small things translate to big wins on the field, like today."
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Ridgewood and Don Bosco advance to Bergen County boys lacrosse final