Rivier's Scott Miller leads the celebration after the Raiders captured their second straight GNAC men's lacrosse title at Joanne Merrill Field on Saturday. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – What to do when you’re zoned out?

You zone back in.

That’s exactly what the Rivier University men’s lacrosse team did Saturday afternoon at Joanne Merrill Field, rallying to dominate the second half and defeat Saint Joseph of Maine 8-7 for the Raiders’ second straight Great Northeast Athletic Conference championship.

The Raiders, unbeaten at 18-0, trailed 6-3 at the half but the next 30 minutes were a completely different story as they outscored the Monks 5-1 in the second half. And got their second straight championship.

“It’s pretty electric to go back-to-back,” Raider James DelPrete said. “It means everything for us, it means everything for the alumni.”

And now the Raiders will gather sometime today or tonight and watch the NCAA Selection Show, as the GNAC title carries a Division III automatic berth. They’ll find out who, when and where they play. Last year the Raiders hosted and won their first ever NCAA tourney game, beating Maine Maritime.

But yesterday, they wondered if they’d be cleaning out their lockers instead.

“It was a battle, it was back and forth the whole game, but we went back into halftime and we locked in,” Raider Mason Schultz said. “We came out and we were all hot and we didn’t stop until the end of the game.”

“They (the Monks) were giving us a hard time,” Raider James DelPrete said. “We don’t see zone a lot. We go into halftime, we come up with new plays, we push the gaps, and take it from there. … It started working with us. And defensively, I can’t say enough about Jake Lydon. He keeps us together. He’s everything for us.”

Lydon, who was injured at the end of the semis win over Norwich on Wednesday and finished the title game with four saves, all of them huge. For that, he was named GNAC Tourney MVP.

“That was all my defense,” Lydon, a sophomore, said. “They gave up like three shots in the second half. That’s all my defense. That’s all them.”

The Monks had leads of 2-0, 3-1, and then after Raider Andrew Nee tied it at 3 two minutes into the second quarter, the visitors went on a 3-0 run with goals by Brandon Cavicchi, Noah Schaeffer, and Aidan Byrne to take that 6-3 lead into intermission. They kept the Raiders scoreless for the final 13 minutes of the half and first 4:20 of the second half.

“They had a great zone, a great goalie (Jake Dernier, 13 saves) playing great in the net that put them on the five-game run they’ve been on that put them here,” Raiders coach Jay Delanoy said. “It wasn’t easy to beat. We had to try a lot of stuff, but when we found what worked, the kids did a great job executing it.”

The execution began when DelPrete scored with 10:40 left in the third to cut it to 6-4. Then it was Schultz nearly three minutes later, and Aiden Conley (two goals, two assists) tied it with a nice dodge at 6 with 5:45 left in the quarter. Andrew Nee set up Henri Brochu for the go-ahead tally with 1:10 left to make it 7-6.

But what proved to be the deciding goal was one scored by Conley’s twin brother, Liam, a reserve who was ushered in late in the period. Nee set him up as well and he beat Dernier as a cutter going to the net for an 8-6 lead with 1:10 left in the quarter. It was Riv’s final goal of the game.

“I just cut in the middle, and Nee found me in the middle, I was wide open,” Conley said. “I just put it low – we did some scouting – and that was it.”

“A beautiful cut,” Delanoy said. “That wasn’t even part of the adjustment. That was just him seeing space, cutting to the ball and finishing. That’s just being a lacrosse player.”

Rivier’s Aiden Conley (34) bears down on Saint Joe’s Chase Ranger during Saturday’s GNAC Finals at Merrill Field. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

For the 11-9 Monks, it was a tale of two halves, clearly. Defense only got them so far.

“We were in that (zone) pretty much all year, put it in early,” Monks coach Matt Gilbert said. “The leaders of our team, the oldest guys on our team are on defense. We’ve got a lot of young guys on the offensive side, so we we wanted to lean on (the defense).

“The youth kind of showed up for us. Only two seniors on offense. We wanted a rockfight. We wanted to slow things down, take our time in the clear, take our time on the ride, play long possessions on offense and play long possessions on defense.”

Then what changed in the second half?

“It just seemed like our youth showed up on offense that’s all,” Gilbert said.

They finally got their seventh goal, by hat-trick attackman Nicolas Michaud (three goals, three assists), with 7:36 left. That made it 8-7 and ended a scoreless streak of 22:57. Michaud had scored with 33 ticks left in the half for the 6-3 Monks lead.

Saint Joseph’s just couldn’t solve the Rivier tenacious defense, led by the likes of Cole Ronalter and All-Tourney Teamer Logan Layton. Other Riv All-Tourney players were Owen McDuffie, Schultz and Conor Walsh.

In the game’s final minute, the Raiders chose to run out the 80 second shot clock rather than try for an insurance goal, knowing the Monks would have to go the length of the field after calling time with 14.7 seconds left. They couldn’t get a shot off, Walsh picked up a loose ball and a couple of seconds ticked off. Title time.

“It feels amazing, it feels so great,” Lydon said. “Couldn’t ask for a better end of the (GNAC) season.”

It’s not quite over yet, as the Raiders are about to enter another zone with the NCAA tourney: The fun zone.

Rivier’s Cole Ronalter (33) battles Saint Joe’s Zander Kirk (44) and Brandon Cavicchi during Saturday’s GNAC Finals at Merrill Field. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)