Last year, the Spartans boys lacrosse team had a devastating 8-7 overtime loss in the Section III quarterfinals against Carthage. After a great regular season last year with a 13-3 record, this year’s team is looking to build off last season and be successful once again.
“I believe we are going to be just as good as last year,” said Junior Captain Geo Frattasio.
The team this year has the same defense as last year and is confident that their Goalie Will Picolla got even better this year, Geo said.
The team lost five seniors last spring and two of them went on to play college lacrosse: Logan Banek is playing at Siena and Sawyer Kramer is playing at SUNY Brockport. Both of those guys are big losses, since Logan won 88% of his faceoffs and Sawyer had 68 goals last year.
“Most of the juniors have to step up and be leaders on the team,” said Geo. “Losing Logan and Sawyer means we have to value the ball a lot more than last year.”
“We have only four seniors this year and a lot of younger kids will be playing,” said Coach Pope. He still expects the team to be good even with very few seniors. As always, he expects the seniors to show leadership and maturity to inspire the younger kids, and he would also like to see the juniors step up to the challenge this year.
A big change this year for New York State Boys Lacrosse is a shot clock being added. According to New York Sports Writers, the boys game will introduce a 60-second shot clock while maintaining the 20-second clearing rule. Following the successful clear, attacking teams will continue to have 10 additional seconds to get the ball into the offensive box. Clocks will reset on saved shots or hitting the pipe of the net.
Coach Pope said the pace of the game will be different and that for the offensive side it won’t affect the Spartans that much since the team already plays with a quick pace. A big difference will be defending the clears and getting guys on and off the field on clears too. Another big difference is if the offense doesn’t hit the net on shots, the shot clock won’t reset. This will make it harder to reset possession for the offense. Coach Pope thinks it will benefit the defense since they can get rewarded more for their efforts because the shot clock stops the other teams from holding the ball way too long.
Coach Pope and the Captains Jake Garcia and Geo Frattasio all said that they want to win the TVL League again and want to compete in Sectionals this year and get to the championship game.
The Boys Varsity Lacrosse team has its first scrimmage at home against South Jefferson on March 26th. At their first regular season game at Carthage on April 3rd the Spartans are looking to get revenge following a tough loss to them in the first round of the playoffs last season.
