May 10, 2006

So, do you think your team has had a long lacrosse season? How would you like to be a member of Rockhurst Jesuit boys' team, located in Kansas City? The Hawklets carry a 23-0 record and number one ranking in the state into their regular season finale against Pembroke Hill on Thursday. That's 23 games played since March 9, including 10 contests against out-of-state competition.

Despite the heavy schedule, there's no sign that the 2003 Missouri state champions are getting weary. Rockhurst has outscored its last five opponents by a combined 74- 13 score, and has not scored less than 10 goals in any of its 23 games.

One reason for the high game totals is that boys' lacrosse in Missouri, as in many other states, is still not a sanctioned sport by the state's high school athletics association. (Girls' lacrosse just earned sanctioning approval last week by the MSHSAA, possibly paving the way for boys' approval in the near future.) With a limited number of teams (currently 32 in Missouri), many squads travel to out-of-state locations for additional games, especially contests that offer a more competitive challenge.

Rockhurst, for example, played five games in two days in California during a weekend trip to the West Coast in March. They also had a three-day road trip to Indiana in April that featured four games in 48 hours.

"The kids who come to Rockhurst are used to the travel," explained Head Coach Jay Coleman, who also took his squad to Colorado and California last year, and Washington, D.C. and Colorado the year before. "As a school located right on the state line on the Missouri side of Kansas City, even a normal game for us is to drive four hours to St. Louis. We make that trip six or seven times each season."

Coleman said that the school budget covers the costs for the day-trips, while parents help cover the additional expenses for the out-of-state excursions. "Our parents are willing to do it," he said. "It's never been a problem."

Understandably, many public school teams don't have the same flexibility in their scheduling, with game limits and out-of-state travel restrictions imposed by their sanctioning organization, or the reality of funding shortages that almost all municipalities face. In the case of Rockhurst, being a private school that attracts most of the best lacrosse athletes in the area helps to overcome those restrictions.

"We're pretty good this year," admits Coleman, "and we have to travel for competition."

• The clubhouse leaders for games played and wins on the girls' side, not surprisingly, hail from a couple of Southern states that have already wrapped their championship seasons. Last week, we mentioned that the Florida Vero Beach girls finished with a 21-1-1 record en route to the title.

In neighboring Georgia, Milton concluded its run to a state title with a 15-10 win over Westminster last weekend. Both teams finished with identical 20-1-1 overall records.

• Speaking of Georgia, the boys' state title was also awarded on Saturday, with some of the expected as well as the unexpected on the scene at the championship game. The familiar folks were the two competing teams, private Lovett and public Lassiter, playing in the title game for the third straight year, even though Saturday's championship was just the second sanctioned by the GHSA.

The unexpected was the enthusiastic capacity crowd that filled Lovett's stadium to witness visiting Lassiter's claim to a first state title with a lopsided 17-8 victory over the home team.

Lassiter avenged a seven-goal loss to Lovett from the regular season as well as a 15-8 loss to their rival in last year's state final. The teams battled to a 6-6 tie, with no overtime, in the 2004 finale.

• It's a big week of lacrosse in Texas, but then again, they say that everything's big in Texas. The Intercollegiate Associates Championships, with 44 men's and women's college club teams competing for national titles, continues through Saturday in Dallas. And the Texas high school play-offs crowned the newest state champs last weekend, with St. John's and Klein winning the boys' titles and St. John's and Kingwood claiming girls' championships. The St. John's boys claimed their first state crown since 2001, while the SJ girls earned their second straight title by rallying from a 4-0 deficit against Cy-Fair in the championship game.

• In New Jersey, Moorestown continues its hold on the top spot in the state girls' rankings, despite suffering its first loss of the year against Maryland's Mount Hebron last weekend. Saturday's 10-8 loss to the Maryland powerhouse marked the first time this year that the Quakers scored fewer than 12 goals or allowed more than five in a game. Moorestown, 13-1 overall, has three more in-state games remaining before closing out its regular season with another powerhouse visitor, Sts. Stephen's & Agnes, on May 20.

Shawnee, state runner-up in 2001 and 2002, is expected to be Moorestown's top challenger in the state once again. After opening with a 5-5 tie against Conestoga, Shawnee has now won 12 straight, all by double digits.

• And finally, a tip of the stick to Tony Manzelli, who announced that he is retiring as boys' coach at Weymouth High School in Massachusetts after 35 seasons on the sidelines. Manzelli, who has led his team to the state finals three times and the title once, in 1986, has been selected as the Boston Globe's prep coach of the year five times in his career.

"I'm the old dinosaur," Manzelli said in a recent profile in The Boston Globe. "I'll probably coach some youth team, but I'll never coach another high school."

Weymouth is 5-6 this season with six games remaining in the regular season.