Thorough Commitment, Limited Skill
By Peter Mills
The Hastings lacrosse players had trouble hiding their joy after their game. The high school’s boys’ team had finished their late afternoon game in an impressive manner. Players were smiling, playing around and celebrating with each other and their families. They’d just overcome rival-school New Rochelle in the first round of the Skylar Sonn Tancredi Memorial Tournament —a tournament they host. The schools they face in the tournament aren’t particularly talented, but then again, neither are they.
Hastings has sat in one of the bottom leagues of Section 1 lacrosse since the school gained a varsity program in 2006. Now, Hastings has been victorious in some areas. Twice they’ve won the Elliot M. Stark Memorial Tournament hosted by Croton High School. Three years ago they won their own tournament. For the fifth year in a row, they’ve won the Friendship Cup, a game against Peekskill High School that encourages friendship and bonding.
Each of the past three years, the team has also boasted winning records, going 10-9 twice and 10-7 this past year. On paper, they seem like a middle-of-the-pack team. It is the games they lose that matter, though.
“The worst moment in my high school career… it has to be the Pleasantville game. It was an Ardsley Tournament game, three years ago. They just… killed us.” The game that senior captain Stafford Enck is referring to was a slaughter of Hastings by Pleasantville, 11-1, which marked the penultimate game of what had been a promising season.
Though they’ve qualified every year, the team has never won a Sectionals game, and often lose by excessive amounts (13-3 two years ago, 12-2 the year before). They are perennial contenders in the tournament hosted by Ardsley High School, and have never advanced past the first round. They’ve also had to deal with embarrassing outings against local rivals Edgemont and Irvington repeatedly.
Yet the team always has players. Not a lot of players, but enough to have a team. So what keeps the players going? It’s not attention. Few fans, outside of parents of players, ever attend the game. In fact, bleachers near the field only hold a maximum of about 50 people, and the rest must either stand or sit on a nearby hill.
It’s also not prestige. Hastings actually has had great success in recent years with their sports teams: in 2008, the boy’s soccer team made the section finals, meaning they were in the top eight in the state. In back to back years, the Hastings baseball team made the sectional finals, once winning and advancing to the state final four. That success bought the team a new scoreboard and a lot of funding in the school budget. Lacrosse, though, remains unimportant in the eyes of everyone not involved with the team.
The reasons some young athletes turn to lacrosse in this small village are numerous, but a few common themes emerged in interviews with players.
A number of them, including Enck, said it had to do with how playing makes them feel. “I’m just so competitive,” Enck says. “I love getting so into the game.” Junior goalie Harrison Zhu agrees. “I’m very competitive. I think that has something to do with it.”
Zhu felt there were other things that influenced his decision to continue to play, too. “Being out there, you’re sort of the last resort for the team, the last defense. It really helps with your confidence. You know? It’s done amazing things for my confidence.”
It is hard to ignore the negatives though. Losing is a part of Hastings lacrosse, and most of the players know it.
As a new program, there are few schools on the same level, but many that have highly skilled, more experienced programs. This means that in a given lacrosse season, about a third of the games played will be against higher-ranked teams, a third of the games will be league matches, and a third will be tournaments, and arranged games with teams that the coach might deem even in skill.
It is for this reason that the players find comfort in knowing that they may be able to take first place in their tournament this year.
Skylar Tancredi was a student at Hastings who drowned the summer before entering high school in 2006. As he was a lacrosse player, coach and then-athletic director Drew Wendol immediately set-up the tournament to honor the fallen teammate.
Hastings was able to win the first tournament, defeating Irvington in the finals. The next year though, Irvington showed up in the finals again, and this time they were victorious, defeating Hastings and taking home the plaque commemorating first place.
The 2009 tournament offered a chance at salvation for Hastings, and an opportunity to wrest the title from Irvington’s hands. Unfortunately, Irvington proved too powerful for Hastings, and once again, they took home the trophy.
Now, though, things were different. Irvington saw a number of players graduate, including many of their defensemen and the goalie from the previous year. While Hastings lost two thirds of their starting defense and a number of midfielders, they kept their most dangerous offensive weapon, Luke D’Alessandro, along with their goalie, Zhu, star midfielder Enck, and a number of other players.
They felt they could finally take back their tournament. This year’s tournament was especially important, as the seniors on the team, five of whom are the captains, grew up with Skylar.
Unfortunately, like so many other things for Hastings lacrosse, the tournament would end in despair. Irvington was eliminated by Pearl River High School, who kept up their high level of play in the final and eventually defeated Hastings by a score of 7-4.
Heartbreaking losses like these make the players question whether they want to keep playing, and Coach Wendol thinks it’s going to be even tougher to attract players in the future, due to new changes.
As Wendol explained it, in an attempt to save money, the leagues in Section 1 lacrosse were reshuffled, putting teams in leagues with the teams closest to them. The thoughts at the time were that this would be frugal in the long run by saving on travel costs. Unfortunately, Hastings is located in an area with a number of experienced programs.
While their league was once made up of new programs and small schools, Hastings now must play against Ardsley (whom, in eight meetings, they’ve never beat), Pelham Memorial High School, and the elite Bronxville, who not only won the Ardsley tournament last year, but also made it to the Section 1 semifinals.
In the past, winning could keep the athletes motivated, even if it was against not-so-good teams. Hastings even made bids at winning the league title, missing it by one win two years in a row. But now, the team, including the coach, feels somewhat hopeless.
“I don’t know what to tell the kids. You have a game like White Plains [which Hastings lost 16-3], and I’m just happy they didn’t give up. They played hard, stayed with it. What else can I say to them?” Wendol explained the difficulty he’s had trying to keep the kids motivated. When asked what his goals for the team are, he grimaced and replied, “I mean… I hope we can go .500, but I don’t even know if that’s doable.”
This is a problem that exists for many of the smaller lacrosse schools. Teams are completely outclassed by their divisions, and it could mean trouble for some of the programs. Albertus Magnus, a school that plays Hastings once a season and is usually defeated, is located across the Hudson River, and is surrounded by lacrosse powerhouses. For them, this change could be devastating. As one lacrosse player observed, “something like this happens, and the good schools get more players who want to beat up on small teams, and the small schools suffer. [Magnus] will be lucky to get a win this season.”