by Justin Feil, The Packet Group
Though the numbers are down, hopes remain high as the Lawrence High School boys lacrosse team prepares to open the 2009 season.
The Cardinals lost just three players to graduation and return plenty of experience. It’s just that they would prefer to use their experiences of 2006 and 2007, when LHS won six games apiece, rather than last year when they struggled through a 3-11 season.
”Last year, we didn’t have a whole lot of leadership,” said LHS’ Anthony Ammirata, who begins his fourth season as head coach. “That was my main message to our team this year, that we need leadership. We never hit rock bottom, but we were dealing with one negative issue after another. We self imploded. Every time I thought we’d hit rock bottom, we had something else, whether it was injuries, or people quitting, or kids not showing up to practice. It was too destructive to really improve.”
Ammirata is hoping that some of the experience that the Cardinals return can develop into the leadership they need to put together a stronger season. LHS opens the year with a difficult contest against Hopewell Valley on Wednesday. It will give LHS an early test of its strengths.
”I think defensively, we’re more experienced,” Ammirata said. “They’re a lot more comfortable back there. There’s a lot more leadership. Those kids back there have been playing since their sophomore years.
”We have some scorers too. David Koellner has a chance to break 200 points. He’s already over 110 goals. And we have a good midfielder, Colin Anderson, who’s going to Albany. They like his athleticism. He’s usually the best athlete on the field for both sides. He’s a definite threat. We have some other kids that will help too.”
Koellner and Anderson are captains this season along with Rafael Albanese. The other seniors on the team are Matt Gregory, Steve Mitchell, Steve Parsons and Colin Barker.
The rest of this year’s LHS roster includes: juniors Ian Wolf, Max Sobhani and Nikhil Sharma; sophomores Ryan Janoska, Shane Hickey, Soloman Park, Fritz Mineus, Xan Dingwall, Jon Tino and Brandon Huang; and freshmen Colin Rogers, Chaz Nagy, Parker Lewis, Matt Ubry; Oscar Quiroz and Ben Kraun.
”Our numbers are low so it’s tough to practice full field,” Ammirata said. “I tell people to compare it to basketball and imagine not being able to go full court, so that makes it tougher. My initial outlook was to get 10 kids per class so we’d have 40. We got 25. They’re great kids. They’re working hard. We’re opening up with Hopewell Valley, which a very good team. We’ll learn from it and move on.
”I don’t have really, really deep goals,” he said. “My superficial goal is to compete in practice every day. Wins and losses, I’m not looking at that. In the back of my head, I’d like to be .500.”
After going 0-16 the year before he arrived, Ammirata saw progress in his first two seasons. He’s hoping to get back to a more competitive season now, led by a deep senior group.
”We have eight or nine seniors who have a whole lot of game experience,” Ammirata said. “They’re the backbone of our program now. It was my first year when they were freshmen. We’ve grown. Freshman year, we won six games. Then we won six games the next year.”
After a down year, the Cardinals are hoping to send this senior class out with another strong showing. And beyond this, Ammirata sees hope for the program’s future.
”Our youth league is promising,” he said. “We have about 60 in the youth league now.”
Lawrence is trying to build its program to be more competitive in the Colonial Valley Conference. The Hamilton schools will soon have varsity programs and some of the programs that began when Lawrence did are starting to flourish.
”It’s tough,” Ammirata said. “The Allentowns and Robbinsvilles of the world, they’re up and coming. It didn’t take Allentown long and it didn’t take Robbinsville long. There’s more of a learning curve with us. It’s tough to beat those guys. They’re skilled. And the Princetons, Hopewells and West Windsor Souths, we’re just not there yet.”
The Cardinals, though, will have the chance to see how far they’ve come by season’s end.
”There is a Mercer County Tournament this year,” Ammirata said. “That should be fun.”

