By: Sean Moylan
Because so many local teams have started their boys’ varsity lacrosse programs within the past decade, the Robbinsville boys’ varsity lacrosse squad doesn’t have as much ground to make up as some of the school’s other sports.
Moreover, the Ravens have done a fine job preparing for this, their first varsity season.
"We’re lucky we had a feeder program," said Robbinsville boys’ varsity lacrosse head coach Chris Penna, whose team has had some great scrimmages and practices in the past few weeks.
Last year Robbinsville was 9-3 as a junior varsity lacrosse team. Robbinsville lacrosse players are so dedicated to the sport that many have played in the Peddie Indoor League for years, while others have gone to lacrosse camps.
"A lot of them are looking for lacrosse to possibly get them into college," said Penna, who was the former assistant lacrosse coach at St. Neumann High School. Penna’s varsity assistant and Robbinsville boys’ junior varsity lacrosse coach is Rob Schulte, who was the Notre Dame’s head lacrosse coach in 2004-2005.
Offensively, the Ravens are counting on juniors John Eckstein (attack) and Tyler Fasanella (midfielder) to be the primary goal scorers. However, Penna has built his team from the back up and he’s expecting a good year out of junior goalie Joe Borzio, who had a few shutouts last season. Juniors Mike Andersen and Mike Zapicchi will anchor what should be a fine defense.
"I’m a defensive coach so if we can score in the 6 or 7 goal range, we can win some games," said Penna, who will also be counting on Evan Moshinski (junior), Derick Hughes (junior) and Alex Redler (sophomore) on the defensive end of the field.
Penna has also been impressed with the play of junior attackers Jeffrey Ivey and Douglas Lapp. In the midfield, Timothy Giarra (junior), Justin Carrubba (junior), Eric Schmid (freshman), and Joseph Ferraro (freshman) could score some goals and make some defensive stops for the Ravens, while Penna is looking for junior veterans Anthony Brown and Randall Collins to be more defensive oriented middies. Furthermore, Robbinsville has a strong back-up goalie in junior John Delgado.
Ryan Bottin (a freshman midfielder), Giuseppe Cino (junior midfielder), Alec Farriella (freshman attacker), Justin Genzo (freshman attacker), Kevin Koss (freshman attacker), Alexander Rentschler (sophomore attacker), Robert Wayda ( junior defender), Brandon DiDonato ( freshman defender), Anthony Ferrano (freshman defender), Kenny Leszcynski ( freshman midfielder), Othman Zia (sophomore attacker), and Grayson Matera (freshman midfielder) will see action on either the varsity or JV team or both.
Unlike some of the other Robbinsville varsity teams, the boys’ lacrosse squad will avoid a few CVC powerhouses this year because it is playing an independent schedule. However, one of Penna’s main concerns is his team only has four home games on its schedule this season.
"We’ll basically have to be road warriors," noted Penna, who’d like for his team to be competitive from the start until the finish of the season. This year he’d like to see them learn how to win and finish close games at the varsity level. He also believes that if they do the little things right it will lead to success down the road.

