La Salle looking to erase sour aftertaste

It wasn't supposed to be the game that defined their season, not by a long shot. This was, after all, merely the semifinals of the Catholic League playoffs. It was a game that the La Salle Explorers surely expected to win in a season in which a league final, if not a state championship, was the expected end game.

After Archbishop Wood's Carlo Barrera netted a 29th-minute goal on a perfect cross from striker Tom Baker to take a 1-0 lead last Oct. 30, the score stood as the final count and abruptly ended La Salle's season.

"They shattered our hopes and dreams," La Salle midfielder Chris Pawlowski said.

At times last season, La Salle found itself ranked in the top 10 (as high as No. 8) in at least one national high school boys' soccer poll. The Explorers cruised through the regular season with just one loss but, perhaps as a residual effect from its youthful brashness, lacked the poise and awareness to win the game that mattered most: the one right in front of them.

This season, La Salle is again ranked in the top 40 nationally, but you likely won't find this team falling into the traps that killed its 2010 campaign. The Explorers, equipped with stinging memories, are intent on winning the Catholic League championship and, though they hesitate to acknowledge it, eyeing the state's top prize.

The culture of scholastic sports is married to roster turnover. Athletes graduate, new students brought into the fold each year. In a league that's always competitive, one much like the deep Catholic League, continuity can be paramount. The Explorers, who scored 51 goals a year ago, return as many players as any program in the Philadelphia region.

Nineteen players from last year's outfit, including 10 starters, are back to play quality minutes. The one player who stands out above them all is striker Darius Madison.

A senior being courted by North Carolina, Virginia, and Penn State, Madison scored 17 goals (plus 12 assists) as a junior and is the premier playmaker on a team with dribbling ability and deft touch at nearly every position.

The Explorers will use their experience to rotate among various formations, including a 4-4-2 and 4-3-3, and even shifting to a 4-2-3-1 or 4-5-1 when they look to get defensive.

In goal is the vocal Leonardo Romero. Romero is the first to concede La Salle's lack of attentiveness to last season's semifinal.

"We just weren't prepared," Romero said. "We were all a little bit nervous because we had a lot of pressure on us. But this year, we're settled down."

La Salle's first test will come against defending Catholic champ St. Joseph's Prep on Thursday, leaving no time for either league power to settle into the season. On Oct. 1, the Explorers will play their biggest nonleague game, against defending District 1 champ Lower Merion. They will get their first look at Wood six days later.

Such games will measure how viable La Salle, ranked No. 1 in Southeastern Pennsylvania by The Inquirer, is as a state-title contender. Ask the Explorers - from coach Bob Peffle to team cocaptain Pawlowski, who last year played the season after his recovery from Hodgkin's lymphoma - if they are immediately eyeing the program's first trip to the PIAA playoffs, they will refer consistently to one thing.

"If the PCL is taken care of," Peffle said, "well then, we'll think about anything beyond that."

La Salle hasn't won a league title since 2006, two years before the PCL joined the PIAA. If it wants a taste of the state-level playoffs, with a team rife with experienced talent, this is its best chance.

"Last year, we took it for granted because we knew we had another year ahead of us," Pawlowski said.

And it's here.