A dejected Bishop Guertin goalie Jonah Feliciano is comforted by teammate JP Dunsmoor asthey walk off Motta Field after the Astros edged the Cards 9-8 to snap Guertin's in-state win streak at 86 games Monday night. (Telegaph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – The ingredients were all there, and the storm was perfect.

The Astro storm, that is.

The Pinkerton Academy boys lacrosse team came into Stellos Stadium Monday night amped up at 9-2 knowing that it had a chance to make history, and the Astros did just that, snapping Bishop Guertin’s 86-game in-state win streak with a thrilling 9-8 win.

It was BG’s first in-state loss since the 2019 Division I state title game vs. Pinkerton.

The Astros had a goalie, Owen Perkins, who played out of his mind, especially in the second half, finishing with at least 19 saves. Combine that with the fact BG’s top two scorers, Owen King and Cam Hayden were out with leg injuries, the signs were showing.

“This was like their state championship,” Cards coach Brian Cameron said. “They had a game plan, they played really well, Owen Perkins came up huge for them …Those guys work really hard in the off-season, so credit to them. Their hard work paid off.”

“I was seeing the ball,” said Perkins, who held the Cards to just three goals in the second half while his team rallied from a 5-2 halftime deficit. “This game, the bigger I can make the game, I feel the better I play. Coming up this week, I was telling myself, this is the chip. This is the biggest game of the season right here. The more I amp myself up, I believe the better I play, and that’s what I tried to do today.”

It worked, and his teammates fed off every save. Pinkerton scored four straight in the first six minutes of the third quarter – goals by Tyler Pinardi, Matt Gormady (two) and Jackson Farrell (hat trick) to grab a 6-5 lead before the see-saw began. What changed?

“We have some guys that hadn’t played under the big lights like this before,” Astros coach Marty Auger said. “Not here, not against BG, not in this environment. So I felt like in the first half they were showing it. And then we sort of got that out of our system and in the second half we got that out of our system and started to play the way we were supposed to.”

Guertin did manage to retake the lead on goals by Jack Redfern (three goals) and Hunter Duany with 4:38 to go in the period, but the Astros tied it at 7 on a Cade Johnston goal and that’s where things stood with 12 minutes to go.

The momentum for the Astros continued. They grabbed an 8-7 lead nearly two minutes into the period on Farrell’s third goal, and the score stayed that way while Perkins frustrated the Cardinals over and over. And when midfielder Levi Weaver got a rocket past Cards netminder Jonah Feliciano (12 saves) with 4:39 to play, it made 9-7 feel like 12-7 the way Perkins was playing.

“He’s amazing,” Auger said. “And that’s not the first time he’s done that or us. It’s almost to the point where we expect it. He’s that good.”

Guertin finally made it 9-8 with Hudson Schmitt’s goal with 8.7 seconds left. They won the ensuing faceoff and got one last shot off that Perkins stopped with a second to play.

Guertin will now need to regroup at 8-4.

“There’s a lot of things we need to look at,” Cameron said. “Especially our offense. Being down two All-American lefties, we needed other people to step up and they didn’t today. I have to look internally, and see how we can get our guys free, and put more on the scoreboard.”

The signs were there early. Guertin led 4-1 in the second quarter on goals by Tyler McLeod, Sean McGarry (two) and Jack Redfern but couldn’t pull away, taking a tenuous 5-2 lead into the locker room. Cameron felt his team should have been up 6-1 with all the possessions it had, possessions that came up empty thanks to 13 of their 19 turnovers.

“We were sloppy, we did not play a clean game,” Cameron said. “We almost felt we were better off on defense than we were on offense, the way we turned the ball over.”

Bishop Guertin’s Finn Murphy, left, is bothered by Pinkerton’s Nathan Smith during Monday night’s Division I clash at Stellos Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

Auger felt that with BG’s injury woes, the chance for the win was there, and now the landscape may be changing. Maybe.

“Especially because of their injuries, let’s be honest, I felt like we were the better team,” he said. “I don’t necessarily know if we’re the better team, if they’re full strength, and I’m being very honest with you. I have a lot of respect for all those kids, and they’re very well coached, but once we settled in, I wasn’t too worried about it.”

“They believed,” Cameron said of the Astros. “This is their Super Bowl, this is everything to them. It’s a big game for us, and we also want to win the state championship. This is only going to help us look internally and see what we can do better.”