St. Luke's Boys Varsity Lacrosse: Season Preview

The St. Luke’s Boys Varsity Lacrosse team is heading into the 2017-18 season with a ton of optimism despite a number of key players graduating from last year’s squad.

According to Head Coach Andy Towers there is a good blend of youth and experience within the group and they have been working extremely hard during preseason: “The guys have been working tremendously hard and have done a great job of buying into the importance of coming together as a team. There hasn’t been one player who is not on board with our mission.”

Towers, entering his second year at the helm, knows things will not be easy for the Storm in a fiercely competitive division. He is confident the group will rise to the challenge and have a successful season: “We lost a ton of great players from last year’s class so we are going to have our work cut out for us, there’s no question about that. However, everyone gets the fact that you define your season on the amount of growth that you’ve made.”

This year’s squad will be captained by Chris Besgen ‘18 and Jack Megrue ‘18 and Towers has been very impressed with the leadership qualities shown by both: “We have got great leadership with Besgen and Megrue . Chris has really stepped up in his role as a captain and his leadership in Florida was off the charts. Jack has the qualities of a captain in everything he does and how he goes about his life so I know they will do a great job.”

Towers believes the Storm defense will be one of its strengths this term and is also excited to see what sophomore face-off specialist Jerry Rutigliano ‘20 can add to the team: “We are going to have a defensive team first. I think we have the best defensive player in the league in Sam Boston (20), I think we may have the best faceoff guy in Jerry and we have one of the top goalies in Ned Cunliffe (20). With those three guys, we have an opportunity.”

It will not be all defense though for BVL as Towers is looking for some of the newer faces to help offset the loss of Alex Nerod ‘17, Paul Woodberry ‘17, and Hunter Libman ‘17. “Offensively, we return two attackmen in Besgen and Jack Halsey (‘18) and we also welcome back Brenden Whiteley (‘18) and Megrue . Those guys are going to be counted on to make plays for us. We also have Phil Platek (‘20) and Justin Pearl (‘21) who are going to play key roles for us this year and for the next three to four years.”

The Boys Varsity Lacrosse team starts the season with three road games against Hopkins on Wednesday, April 4, Wooster School on Monday, April 9 and Hamden Hall on Thursday, April 12.