Rivier's Robert DelPrete celebrates the Raiders' emotional GNAC title win over Lasell Saturday at Joanne Merrill Field. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – Fate obviously decreed that the Rivier University men’s lacrosse team would have to have to wait and wait and wait for its first ever Great Northeast Athletic Conference championship.

Not only did this team endure two upset losses at home in the previous two GNAC postseasons, on Saturday it had to endure two lightning delays and one delay for a medical emergency.

But to a man, the Raiders will say it was all worth it after winning that elusive title late Saturday afternoon, 9-7, over Lasell University before a packed house at Joanne Merrill Field.

“Absolutely,” Raider leader Michael Ference said. “I couldn’t have pictured it up more. Coming into this year, we’d never beaten Lasell, and we’ve beaten them twice this year, one at their place and one here, and capped it off with a championship.”

“So worth it,” said game MVP Sawyer Gagnon, the Rivier goalie who made a whopping 13 saves, helping the Raiders stay in front most of the way. “Worth it more than ever.”

Now the Raiders will gather tonight for the streamed NCAA Division III Selection Show to see when and where they will play next as the conference championship gives them an automatic bid. The university has put in a bid to host a first round game (possibly Wednesday) but all that remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, without Gagnon, there wouldn’t have been a championship, as he thwarted the Lasers right and left, including in a frantic – are they always – final two minutes in which Lasell fired shot after shot in his direction.

“Phenomenal,” DeLanoy said. “He’s the best goalie in the conference. I don’t know how the voting’s going to be for All-Conference, but he’s the best goalie in the conference.”

“I didn’t have any thoughts in my head, I think that’s when I play the best,” Gagnon said. “I was really able to track the ball well, I worked on my positioning to make sure I was in position to make every save. I didn’t get all of them but I was pretty dang close.”

The Raiders had jumped out to a 3-0 lead, and that was the score after one quarter. They took a 5-2 lead into the halftime locker room, but the Lasers (14-5) rallied to tie the score at 6 with the second and third of Jack Condon’s three goals with 3:16 remaining in the third quarter. But Rivier’s Michael Zapatka got the go-ahead goal with just 57 seconds left in the period, giving Rivier a 7-6 lead it never relinquished.

With 13:10 left in the game, Rivier’s Connor Eck got his third of the game, set up by Nashuan and Bishop Guertin alum Chris Heitmiller, and that made it an 8-6 game – huge at that point. Heitmiller, who also had a goal, was absolutely incredible with five assists, mainly from behind the net, as he saw things not many players could see.

“He’s the the smartest lacrosse player I’ve ever coached, probably the 10th time I’ve told you that,” Delanoy said. “The one that he scored coming from ‘X’ instead of waiting out back, he told me ‘Coach, if that kid does this, I can do that’. And I said, ‘Just do it when it’s smart to do it’, and he did it when it was perfectly smart to do it.”

That goal, assisted by Sawyer Hall, came with 5:51 left in the first half, giving the Raiders their largest lead, 5-1. The Raiders would only score one of the next six goals – Eck from Heitmiller with 6:39 left in the third for a 6-4 lead – as the Lasers mounted an expected comeback.

“They battled back,” DeLanoy said. “They tied it at 6, we just continued to battle, stay with what we do, believe in what we do, and believe in each other.”

Besides Ek’s hat trick Heitmiller’s and Zapatka’s tallies, Hall had two, Ference one, and Coby Mercier capped things off with perhaps the biggest goal of all with 2:54 left to give the Raiders a 9-7 lead. That came six minutes after Condon’s third goal made it 8-7. The Lasers had several turnovers that cost them during that time in between goals.

Lasell’s Will McCarthy tries to get away from the defense of Rivier’s Braydon Bourque during Saturday’s GNAC Finals at Merrill Field. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

But after Mercier’s goal, the Lasers had called time out. And the players wouldn’t take the field for an hour later. First, there was a medical emergency on the Laser sideline that resulted in who was believed to be a Lasell player – though not confirmed – suffering some type of a medical emergency. That resulted in the arrival of an ambulance, and officials from both schools would not divulge any information except to say it was a “medical emergency.” After the ambulance left, however, the game’s second lightning delay took place. For the second time – the first was in the first half – the players had to leave the field for the locker rooms and fans had to leave the metal stands. And the Raiders were 2:43 from a championship, but add another half hour to that.

“We just sat in there and talked about how mentally tough we had to be to come back out, how mentally prepared we had to be for what the situation was,” Delanoy said. “More captains, seniors and grad students than me. Leadership. The right leadership was in the room.”

“We went into the locker room, kept our head in the game, had no funny business in there,” Ference saic, “and were able to come out and deliver a win.”

And then, once they came back out, it was yet another frantic finish. Remember, Rivier’s defense was second in the country coming in as far as least goals allowed in Division III. So Ference said that’s what got them to the finish line.

“We’ve had a phenomenal defense the whole entire season,” Ference said. “I knew when it came down to the wire our defense was going to be better than their offense.”

So once again, was this worth the wait?

“Yeah,” DeLanoy said with a huge grin. “It was worth everything.”

Rivier goalie Sawyer Gagnon holds up the GNAC Men’s Lacrosse Championship Trophy after his 13 saves helped the Raiders down Lasell 9-7 at Merrill Field on Saturday. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)