Bishop Guertin boys lacrosse players celebrate their17-11 win over Bedford on Thursday at Bulldog Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

BEDFORD – Another challenge met by the Bishop Guertin High School boys lacarosse team.

Every year there’s a team that feels it can snap Bishop Guertin’s long in-state win streak, and every year the Cards prove them wrong. That was the case again on Thusday when BG used a second quarter spurt to take control in an eventual 17-11 win over last year’s Division I runnerup, Bedford High School, at Bulldog Stadium.

The Bulldogs’ hopes weren’t unwarranted. They took the Cards (5-1) to overtime a year ago and gave them a competitive game in a 15-12 Division I title game.

“We talked about it for weeks leading up to this game,” BG first-year head coach Brian Cameron said. “We had just enough to win tonight. We’re going to see them again (in the postseason) and it’s going to be a battle.

“I think last year we got caught off guard a little bit. Bedford in past years wasn’t at that level … Our guys were sitting on this one. We hear the talks, ‘Should Bedford be No. 1’ So our guys were sitting on this one and it was a big one for us vs. such a good team.”

Early on, it looked like the game would match the hype; BG led 6-5 after one quarter on a goal by Owen King – his first of a team-high five — with 1:05 left. It would start a string of seven straight Guertin goals that ironically ended with another King goal and put them up 12-5 with 3:58 left in the half. The Cards (-z) never trailed thereafter.

“It was tough,” Bedford coach Steve Gaudreau said, his team now 4-3 but its other losses, like BG’s were out of state. “The first quarter had such great energy, we made mistakes in that second quarter and felt deflated. When you’re playing good teams, you can’t make multiple mistakes in a row or let teams make multiple plays in a row, and they’re certainly good enough to do that.”

But, as Gaudreau said, “I was proud of the way we battled back.” That’s because the ‘Dogs held BG to one goal in the third quarter, which ended 13-9 Guertin. And, with 5:04 remaining, Bedford’s Brody Helton – he and Bennett Matthews led the ‘Dogs with three goals each — scored to make it 14-11, and it was a game again – briefly. That’s when King became a factor again, feeding a cutting Beau Dubois in close to make it 15-11 with 1:42 to go, and then King scored himself with 1:08 to play, 16-11. That did it.

King had two assists for a seven-point game. Sean McGarry was next in scoring for BG with four goals and an assist; Dubois had a hat trick while Michael Ponto and Cam Hayden each had a pair. Jack Redfern had the game’s final goal, while Jeremy Warren added an assist.

Bishop Guertin’s Hunter Duany, right, and Andreas Steinbrueck harrass Bedford scoring threat Brody Helton during Thursday’s game at Bulldog Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

After a tough first quarter, Cards goalie Jonah Feliciano finished strong with eight saves, while his Bedford counterpart Ethan Conn had 10, trying to keep his team in the game.

Keys: As always, Paolo Vazquez controlling the majority of the faceoffs, along with Feliciano’s clutch saves in goal as the Cards pulled away.

“It showed a lot of mental toughness for our team,” Cameron said of the way BG handled Bedford’s rally. “Paolo playing great and Jonah I thought made three or four key saves. And just down the stretch taking good shots and being patient with the ball.”

And patience is something the rest of Division I will have to have, because it’s simply not their time.