Former freshman coach moves up to varsity lax
By: Justin Feil
When Matt Foret and his family moved from New York to New Jersey to be closer to his wife’s parents, he made sure he would have an opportunity to stay in lacrosse.
"We made the switch and that was a factor in deciding where we wanted to go," Foret said. "I only wanted to go to a school that had lacrosse."
Foret found a new home at West Windsor-Plainsboro South, where after a year as the freshman boys’ coach, he takes over head coach of the boys’ varsity this spring. It is his first head coaching position after serving previously as an assistant at Nyack High in New York.
"I feel well prepared for it," said Foret, who takes over for Kerry Weigner, an assistant at Immaculata High this year. "I was able to play at the college level and I’ve had a chance to work with some other good coaches. I’ve been looking for an opportunity like this. And when a nice opportunity presented itself at West Windsor where I’m teaching too, it’s an added bonus."
Foret teaches Advanced Placement Biology at WW-P South and he has coached the freshman girls’ soccer team the last two seasons. He comes with a year of experience in the boys’ lacrosse program, but he also feels like a new face to much of the team. Foret has two players from his freshman team last year that made this year’s varsity. Other than that, he has had to get to the know the strengths of many of the players that played above the freshman level last season.
"The way they had things set up last year, we practiced off campus at a local park so I didn’t get to be around the varsity much," he said. "So when we started this year, there were players I didn’t know. It’s like someone coming in from the outside with a little familiarity."
What Foret does have plenty of familiarity with and a passion for is the game of lacrosse. Foret was a midfielder at the University of Scranton and started getting into the coaching side not long after then. He has coached lacrosse at the high school level for more than a dozen years, the last eight as junior varsity or varsity assistant at Nyack.
"In that area, that’s a traditional hotbed of lacrosse," Foret said. "We had some up and down years while I was there. Historically, it’s a good program."
The Pirates too have been a historically good program, one known under Weigner for giving opponents a battle regardless of the make-up of the team. Foret feels good about heading up the program that has plenty of promise for the future. He saw signs of that last year. As the freshman coach, he was missing five of his best players that were playing up on varsity.
"That was one lament we had," Foret said. "We didn’t have those five kids from the freshman team. It made it tough on us at times. But it also opened opportunities for other kids. Some of the kids that played with them in middle school had relied on those other kids to carry them. They had to step up and carry our team. And now we have two kids from that (freshman) team that stepped up and made the (varsity) team.
"We have seven sophomores playing major minutes," he added. "That’s great for the future. When they’re seniors, we’ll have a very senior dominated team with experience."
For this year, the Pirates will still be on the young side, but they again have the talent to contend with anyone. Foret is hoping to put into place the first points to sustaining a strong program. He draws on his previous playing and coaching experience.
"It’s nothing too special," he said. "I hope we’ll be a disciplined team, a team that plays hard and plays smart. I want the players to have a good understanding of the game. That means offensively, I don’t want them to be robotic. I want there to be an understanding of the flow and them to be able to make decisions on their own without us having to call them out all the time. The discipline part and playing hard is the stuff we emphasize a lot in practice. We have up-tempo practices and hopefully that pays off when they get in a game. We want to see a team that plays hard and is smart about doing things. We want them to do things the right way."
As the Pirates adjust to a new coach, they do so with plenty of promise for the future. It’s what made the coaching position so attractive for Foret. It’s reassured him that he made the right choice in moving to WW-P South two years ago.
"It’s a great opportunity," he said. "From a personal standpoint, it’s a great time to be taking over this team, taking over this program. It’s makes the coaching change easier that there are so many young guys and maybe they’re not as invested in another coach’s style or another staff. But the older players have been great about it. With the young players, it’s a great opportunity to take over and grow and go forward.
"We’ve got great numbers in our program. And there are more and more players coming in that have three or four years of lacrosse in. I think that future here is really good. I’m excited not just about this season, but about going on."

