Hampton boys lacrosse ‘trending in right direction’ after 3rd straight PIAA appearance

By: John Grupp
Saturday, June 14, 2025 | 11:45 PM

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This season looked a lot like last season for the Hampton boys lacrosse team.

The Talbots finished second in the section with a 9-1 record, lost to Mars in the WPIAL Class 2A semifinals, rebounded to make the state playoffs, and then lost a close match at District 3 champion Trinity in the PIAA first round.

That’s the identical path as last spring.

“Some people might just look at the results, and they were the same as last season,” coach Andy DeMichiei said. “But I thought it was a completely different team and much improved and overall a very successful season.”

All-WPIAL junior attack Eli Schwarzbach, who scored a team-leading 75 goals, agreed that the results fail to reveal the level of improvement.

“It was the same outcome as last year,” he said. “But I think there was a clear upgrade from last year. We’re trending in the right direction.”

There were some differences. The Talbots, whose season ended with an 11-8 loss at undefeated Trinity (22-0) on June 3, finished with a better record this season — 16-6 vs. 12-8 in 2024 — and, more importantly, they were highly competitive against the WPIAL’s top teams.

Hampton’s six losses were to nine-time defending WPIAL champion Mars (twice), WPIAL Class 2A runner-up South Fayette, Class 3A Pine-Richland, and PIAA semifinalists Trinity and Twin Valley (by an 8-5 score in late April).

There is hardly a bad loss in the bunch for the Talbots, who beat Peters Township, 7-4, on May 22 to reach the PIAA playoffs for an unprecedented third year in a row.

“We didn’t do what we wanted to do, (which was) win the WPIAL championship,” said all-WPIAL sophomore attack Heath Borgo, who scored 31 goals, “but we were sticking with teams that we needed to stick with.”

The proof is in the numbers. Last season, Hampton lost to Pine-Richland, 14-4. This season, it was 11-10.

South Fayette (20-2) needed two overtimes to beat Hampton, 6-5.

The Talbots still haven’t figured out Mars, but they are closing the gap. Mars routed Hampton, 20-6 and 13-0 in their two ‘24 meetings. This season, the final scores were 12-5 and 13-6, and both games were tied at halftime.

“The improvement shows we can hang with anyone,” Schwarzbach said.

Two years ago, Hampton lost to Lampeter Strasburg, 16-0, in the state playoffs. Those days appear to be over.

“Skill-wise,” DeMichiei said, “we have made leaps and bounds from my first year.”

The Talbots will return nine starters, including five of their top six scorers — Schwarzbach, Borgo, second-team all-section junior attack Levi Whitfield (43 goals), and junior midfielders Brody Eichas (32g) and Will Venture (22g).

Other returnees include all-WPIAL junior midfielder Daniel Leyes, second-team all-section junior defender Sam Brown, sophomore midfielder Joey Stephenson (team-high 85 ground balls) and goalie Kellan Gale, who had a breakout freshman season.

The losses to graduation are two-time all-WPIAL defender Nolan Harris, second-team all-section attack Porter Kelly (41g), along with midfielders Jake Killian and Josh Dunmire, who missed half of the season with a hamstring injury, and reserve goalie Joey Posteraro.

Their offseason plans include a tournament in Hershey in mid-July.

“We’ve had to travel through a lot of adversity, and I think we need to push each other this offseason to get better,” Borgo said. “I think we have a really good chance of being a very good team next year.”

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