Boys lacrosse: Guerard's goal gives Hersey thrilling win over Fremd in 3 OTs

Fremd's visit to Hersey for their Mid-Suburban crossover on the lacrosse pitch of Roland Goins Stadium Thursday evening signaled the two-week stretch prior to state tournament seedings.

Those seedings on May 9 and pairings May 10 in turn makes each contest even more significant.

And that's how both teams played with an urgency that had the aura of a postseason game that ended up taking nearly 57 minutes and three overtimes to complete before Jake Guerard's second goal of the game with 3:07 left in period seven gave the host Huskies a 7-6 win.

"That's a really good team," Guerard said just after catching his breath from having been mobbed by his teammates immediately following his game-winning heroics and prior to him also receiving plaudits from Fremd players.

"We came into this game thinking we could win."

That mentality remained with the home team (9-6) even after it rallied from a trio of two-goal deficits.

Guerard, a junior, got them on the board for the first time with 4:33 left in the first and then set up junior attacker Gus Sawicki for the first of two goals that evened things up at 3 at halftime.

Sawicki, who turns 17 on Friday, connected on his second score that started another Hersey rally after training 5-3 in the third. Freshman Zachary Brautigam finished with a goal that gave them their first lead of the night at 6-5 with 4:31 left.

However, the Vikings (9-5) would respond thanks to senior midfielder Jack Wienke's second tally tying the contest at 6 with 3:13 remaining in regulation.

After neither team could come up with the golden goal in the rest of the fourth and in extra periods 1 and 2, Guerard looked for his chance.

"I saw my teammate dodge down the alley,“ Guerard said. ”I popped up and then I thought I was going to sweep over the top and get a shot off my left hand. I was lucky enough to have space. I tried to shoot the ball (and) it bounced off somebody's back I think and it ended up the back of the goal."

All of which left Hersey coach Jason Koziol impressed of his young team's ability to bounce back.

"Kind of something (that) we've been harping on (with) the guys," Koziol said. "Just being able to take a punch and respond and we’ve got to be able to stop a team's momentum and then we’ve got to be able to build some ourself. Props to the guys. They did a fantastic job in playing 48 minutes and then some--three overtimes."