Your can't call them Susquehannock, but you can call them No. 1.

The Warrior Lacrosse Club, which only includes players from Susquehannock High School on its roster, obliterated Dallastown, 20-4, at York Township Park on Thursday afternoon to complete a perfect 16-0 regular season and extend its two-year winning streak to 46 games.

Led by Ben Erdman (three goals, seven assists) and Dakota Heath (six goals), the Warriors jumped out to an 11-0 lead in the second quarter and led by double digits the rest of the way to earn the easy victory in advance of next week's four-team league tournament.

"We have a real strong nucleus of kids that are real coachable and work real hard on their own," WLC coach Russ LeBlanc said. "They're very competitive and they have a great internal desire to win and be successful. They know each other well and

they enjoy playing the game together."

The only remaining undefeated team among 44 squads in central Pennsylvania, the Warriors sit No. 1 in the LaxPower.com computer rankings.

The club has York County's leading point scorer in Erdman, an astronomical average margin of victory of 11.1 goals this season and a win over Mid-Penn first-place team Cumberland Valley.

But once the Central Pennsylvania Scholastic Lacrosse Association playoffs start the week of May 19, the WLC will not get a chance to prove itself against the best in the area.

The club is not officially

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associated with Susquehannock High School -- which LeBlanc said was a decision the school made primarily for liability reasons -- so the WLC will compete in a separate postseason tournament for non-affiliated teams that includes a pool of about a dozen squads.

Those sorts of categorical semantics won't matter next season when lacrosse becomes a PIAA-sanctioned sport for the first time and Susquehannock launches a varsity program, but it hasn't stopped some from downplaying the WLC's success this season.

Despite the chatter, LeBlanc said that "without a doubt" his team in the best in Central Pennsylvania.

"There's been some talk about us trying to not play hard teams," LeBlanc said. "But we tried to schedule anybody that finished in the top 10 last year. We're trying to play the best in the area and we did that with teams like Lampeter-Strasburg, Penn Manor, Cumberland Valley, Carlisle, Conestoga Valley -- they were all in the top 10 last year.

"In their defense, some of those varsity-level schools have been told that they're not allowed to play club-level schools."

So this 25-member varsity team that includes 14 seniors simply beats the opponents on the schedule and looks to extend a winning streak that has reached monumental proportions.

There isn't even another CPSLA lacrosse team that has less than two losses this season, let alone none at all.

A lot of the credit, according to LeBlanc, goes to "this unique group of seniors" that add an extra level of experience and maturity to the WLC squad.

Unlike their younger teammates, those seniors won't get the chance to wear a Susquehannock uniform and officially represent their school next season. But that doesn't bother senior midfielder Ben Norris.

Norris, who had a goal, an assist and won 17-of-26 faceoffs on Thursday, knows he has helped pave the way.

"We set the path for that to happen," Norris said. "The teams in the future are going to look at us and say: 'They started it all and we have to carry on the tradition.'"
smclernon@ydr.com; 771-2045