2022 Saint Edward's Varsity Preview

The 2022 Boys Varsity Lacrosse team has the deepest roster I have had the privilege of coaching here at Saint Edward's.   This team has lots of varsity experience, strength, speed and skills.  Truly I cannot wait for our practices to start and I love the challenge of what we can accomplish together.  

Some thoughts for the Spring:

The freshman who have moved up from middle school are excellent athletes with a wealth of athletic experience, ability and and capability. The coaching staff will take much of our time readying them for experience on the varsity field, and let them learn the  high school game on the practice field, as well as the game field.

I'm very excited two young midfielders that I think will one day will be incredible for us.  Marlon Dato-Slattery and Augie Barreirinhas are all exceptionally athletic, mentally tough individuals that can quickly grasp the complexities of learning that our offense begins with great defensive play, and transitioning from defense to offense.  Each one is quite capable of making some immediate impact.

Freshman attackman Dylan Orzechowski will have a tough duty ahead, learning to play against defenses that bring veteran defenseman from our opponents as well as our own defensive playmakers in practices.  Dylan is capable, but this is a position that will challenge his learning curve.  As he matures into learning what Saint Edward's does to help him  understand the varsity game, his intelligence and ability will shine in time.

Freshman defenders/long poles Beckley Waldrop and Ethan Ball bring a high-spirited, extremely active toughness to our defensive corp.  You might think that being freshman their learning curve is somewhat great, but their athleticism and ability as well as the experience of our returning sophomore/junior defenseman will be quickly used to do something at Saint Edward's we have not had the chance to do before; run groups of poles at our opponents.

Now we are pretty lucky at Saint Edward's to be adding another capable freshman goalie in Raymond Taft.  Ray has a great work ethic, is a very quick learner and has athletic ability to be a great stopper and clearing goalie with the ability to get upfield if needed.  His basketball skills and understanding of fast/slow break clearing are a tremendous asset in his capability of starting our offense. Raymond will also learn some defense to hopefully add to our future ability.

I'm really excited about our returning lettermen!  Our coaching staff and our deep group of lettermen will learn together as we navigate our strong Spring schedule designed to accelerate our learning curve and ready us for April's playoffs and hopefully into the challenges of early May!  Let's take a look:

Our captains Riker Pratt, Liam Murphy and Oscar Lindenthal are featured in more detail here,  http://steds.lacrosseshift.com/news/2022-senior-co-captains ; and their leadership, skills and experience will be counted on to lead our team. 

Returning senior defenseman Gavin Rooney (Close D) came of age last season, and literally has become an added strength on our defensive unit.  Last year's unit was frankly a "young defense last year in terms of experience,"  but their combined athletic ability, range and capabilities will be relied upon to help what I think will be the most athletic defense we have ever had at Saint Edward's as a group.  That unit of defenders includes some very strong and athletic defenders: 

Juniors Cooper Naughtin (Close D) and Josh Langsam (LSM), and sophomores Stone Colgan, Major Croom, both Close D and LSMs, add incredible athleticism and ability to impact our defensive unit both in terms of match ups and just flat out being an incredible unit just working together.  AJ Munz is back on the lacrosse field and we will start him out on defense  and determine if that is his best potential position, or find where he can contribute best.  We really are already much improved on defense from last year!

At midfield, we have a wealth of ability and toughness.  I love our ability to impact both sides of the field on offense and defense with senior Riker Pratt, juniors Ricky Savage, Eli Barin, Sam Thomas and sophomores Reed Sternberg and Harrison Hardin.  Athletically, this group can all defend, dominate gb's and transition the ball to the offensive side of the field.  Offensively, these are also athletes that will be difficult to defend for our opponent's defense.  Simply we have speed and talent everywhere and players who can put the ball in the back of the net or find a player off-ball who can.

At attack, we bring back senior Oscar Lindenthal and Marshall Heim, junior Ford Norris, and sophomores Will Russell and Harrison Hardin.  Oscar and Ford will anchor our attack unit and their versatility to play midfield offense is unparalleled and so complimentary to help us work at creating more problems for defenses.  Both Oscar and Ford can 'smell the goal" and find their teammates.  Will and Harrison bring both the ability to finish, and new perimeter skills as maturing sophomores. Marshall, a lefty attackman, rejoins our effort and I'm hopeful he can make us just that much more versatile and compete for impactful game time minutes.  I'm confident that his growth and development will help create that opportunity for him.

In goal, we bring senior Liam Murphy, sophomore Kieran Colgan and freshman Raymond Taft.  We are blessed to have two goalies who can start, and one who is a very capable developing goalie.  Fact is, Liam and Kieran give us a one-two punch in goal and although Liam is the most experienced, Kieran is quite capable of leading the show as we intend to utilize some defensive long pole play for Liam who is actually a very good defender.

Which brings me to point out that our coaching staff has done a great job job at helping make our players and team, multi-dimensional.  It truly is our strength, although early on in the season it will test our patience, it will harden of might and fight when the time comes for the playoff run.

We have an interesting roster addition for the Spring, Connor O'Brien!  No not a transfer, but just a student-athlete from the class of 2026, who is ready for the varsity challenge.  He's ready athletically and the young man has "GotSkilz" and has a high Lax IQ.  He's got game and will frankly see time on the varsity field despite our depth.  Now he just needs to soak it all in and develop his game to the high school level.

Can't wait for our challenges together as a coaching staff and team, and finding ways to be our best against our opponents this Spring!