Or maybe he just didn’t want to leave.

Polk cried when his Dover-Sherborn team lost at Harvard Stadium in 2009, an overtime heart-breaker to Scituate, and being back there for the third time in four years (D-S also lost to Weston in last year’s Division 3 finale), the All-American wasn’t going home without a first-place trophy.

Instead, he piloted the Raiders to a 16-6 victory over North Reading as Dover-Sherborn won its first state title in program history.

“Billy probably won’t ever leave lacrosse,” said coach Brian McLaughlin, who started the D-S program in 1996 and was 0 for 4 in title games before this one. “He loves it. And losing again last year was tough for him. He came to play today.”

After North Reading took a 2-0 lead in the first quarter, Dover-Sherborn dominated for the next 36 minutes, and Polk had his fingerprints all over it.

Polk won the first 10 faceoffs he took – he said he was “just lasering it, not even clamping; just sliding my stick right out” – as the Raiders stole the possession advantage in the second quarter and never gave it back. They won 18 of 24 faceoffs in the game, storming back to score seven straight before halftime.

“Obviously, we didn’t have possession,” said North Reading coach Chuck Campobasso. “And we didn’t have possession because they’re unbelievable … They’re robots. They don’t make mistakes.”

While North Reading entered the game with a pair of prolific goal-scorers in seniors Cody Carbone and Eric Valenti, they were contained to just three total goals. D-S sophomore Zach Ambrosino moved from his usual position on defense to more of a midfield role, shadowing Carbone for most of the game.

For the Raiders, Jared Spence and Brandon Jaeger each scored four goals. Polk scored once and assisted on another.

McLaughlin, who was 0 for 4 in title games before Wednesday, joked that he was getting comparisons to Marv Levy, the Buffalo Bills coach in the early ‘90s when the Bills lost four straight Super Bowls.

“After losing my freshman year in the finals, I really saw how much it ate at him,” Polk said. “The team really wanted to get him the victory. He put in a lot of work to make us better and we did this for him.”