By Chris Goldberg
Phillylacrosse.com Posted 6/7/24
Desi Gonzalez, who guided Westtown School to its first league championship and the first PA Independent state title this year, retired from scholastic coaching on Thursday.
Gonzalez said he wanted to focus on his family and his job as Director of Operations for Fusion Lacrosse.
Westtown went 14-5 this year and claimed its first Friends Schools League crown. The Moose also won the first Pennsylvania Independent Scholastic Athletic Association (PAISAA) crown, while also defeating Canadian power Hill Academy in a consolation game at the National Prep Championship.
He was head coach at Westtown for 3 years, compiling a 34-22 record after spending one year as an assistant coach. Previously he was head coach at Southern Lehigh and Emmaus.
“The reason I left Emmaus was to be close to the kids, but that didn’t happen,” he said noting that he went to Westtown to be an assistant under Carl Starkey.
Westtown, which plays mostly a national schedule, won seven of its final eight games, bowing only to Inter-Ac League champion and highly-ranked Haverford School. In the final month of the year, Westtown unseated 9-time defending champion Academy of the New Church (17-11) for the Friends crown, claimed a win over IMG Academy, downed Hill Academy after falling behind by 6 goals and then capped it off with victories over Springside Chestnut Hill Academy and Episcopal Academy to win the PAISAA title.
“The success was due to the senior leadership,” said Gonzalez. “The 2024 class was special and really wanted to make a change. This was the first championship in school history for lacrosse and they wanted that legacy. They banded together to go after that banner.
“Then, when it became time for states, we asked, ‘Why not two? Why not us?'”
In the PAISAA tourney, Westtown avenged an early-season loss (14-8) to SCH with a 19-16 victory and then took a thrilling 14-13 triumph over Episcopal Academy for the crown. During the regular season, Westtown also downed ANC (8-5) for the first time in school history.
Gonzalez said a mid-season defeat (13-7) to Hill School led to the resurgence.
“The Hill loss triggered the whole streak,” he said. “They jumped on us and we didn’t respond well. That motivated us leading to the post-season.
“In the Hill Academy game, we took the stress off ourselves and said, ‘This is the time to go punch a Top 10 team in the outh,'” Gonzalez said. “He had faced lawrenceville, McDonogh and Calvert Hall early in the year during our slaughterhouse schedule so we knew what it was like to compete against the top teams. We were down by six going into halftime and we battled back and held them to one goal in the second half.”
Just in the past month, Gonzalez’s Fusion Futures squad (2029) had won the NXT Spring League, Circuit and NLF Summer Kickoff championships. His team is ranked No. 2 in the country.
“May was a good month for me,” he said.
Gonzalez, a Puerto Rico National team captain, has been proud of his team’s diversity. The Westtown roster had Native American, Black, and Hispanic players and those from many regions of North America and around the world. Six of the team members this year were from Canada, four from China and players also came from Idaho, North Carolina, New York, and Maryland. The team has been featured on USA Lacrosse’s BLaxers Blog for its diversity.
Gonzalez was head coach at Southern Lehigh in 2015 and 2016, posting a 37-6 record while leading the Spartans to the District 11 title in 2016. He was head coach of Emmaus for two seasons, leading the Green Hornets to the 2019 District 1 AAA crown.
Gonzalez, who grew up on Long Island, helped lead Sachem High to the New York State Championship as a junior and was named a Scholastic All-American. Gonzalez graduated from Division II Limestone in 2012 after playing lacrosse for two seasons.
