Boys LAX Team Preps For Another Stunning Season

It's hard to argue with the success of the Cranford boys' varsity lacrosse team. In just five years time, head coach Al Reinoso has led his program to three conference championships, including a title last year, while his team fashioned an impressive 16-5 record.

But that team was senior-heavy, leaving the Cougars with plenty of fresh faces who will need to be prepared to take on a challenging new league.

"We lost a lot of talent," said Reinoso. "The challenge this year for the coaches and players is to try and maintain the success level that we've had for the past couple of years."

While leading scorer Steven DiGiovanni returns for a final season, Reinoso will have to replace one of the best overall offensive units in all of Union County.

"The biggest losses were the two Woglom brothers, Pat and Michael. They've moved on to strong Division-3 programs." Reinoso said. "Alex Stone has moved on to Union County College where he's doing very well. He was a big factor in every aspect of the game for us on offense and defense. Defensively, we lost Connor Koellner and Pat Dolan. Pat is playing hockey and lacrosse in college. Charlie Yotcoski is now playing at FDU. When you total all that together, obviously you can see there's a lot of major losses for us."

The Cougars have several newcomers who will need to fill key roles, and while those positions have yet to be filled, Reinoso knows he needs his returning veterans to step up in a big way.

"Defensively, our two goalies, Jerry Yotcoski and Bobby Anstatt, they're back. They're young. They're just juniors and they have a season of varsity action under their belt last year at sophomores, which is great. Will Bender is also a junior and has been a starter for a year and a half. He's doing very well. We're looking for him to lead the defense."

"We should have a good season," said Bender. "We just have to work on our teamwork and just get the basics down. And if we get those down, we should have a great season. We have a lot to be proud of last year. We lost about seven starters so there's some big spots that need to be filled, but that's what the pre-season is for and once we get those filled, we should be good to go."

Offensively, their big gun is back and there's no doubt the team will need to be carried by one of the best talents to ever carry a stick for Cranford.

"Up front and doing most of everything else will be Stephen DiGiovanni. He's accepted a scholarship from Hofstra University, a Division-1 school that's in the top 10 in the nation right now. We're really going to be leaning on him for major contributions and hopefully another big-time year from him."

Then there's Michael Sheehan, a senior who has improved so much that he'll take his skills to the field of Fairleigh Dickinson University next year.

"He's really blossomed this summer and off-season," said Reinoso. "He's going to be contributing from the midfield and on attack along with Stephen."

"I feel like we've been building a great program," said Sheehan. "As a peer leader, I'm always trying to get kids to be better, push themselves even harder. My teammates years before me did a good job of building a tradition here and I hope me and DiGiovanni can keep it going. It would be great to come back to Cranford High School and see possibly a state title under our belt."

It's that kind of attitude that makes Reinoso proud, while watching how quickly his program has developed since he put his first group together in 2005.

"The way the program has been able to grow in a short time and the type of talent that is coming out of the program and going on to the next level just indicates how much time the boys are putting into it and how much it's growing at the youth level," said Reinoso. "Nowadays, most people are just trying to commit to one or two sports and you have kids putting lacrosse into that mix in Cranford, which is great and accelerating our growth."

Even though the Cougars are still a relatively young program in these parts, they were able to advance to the county semifinals last season. But they wanted more.

"It was an outstanding year," said Reinoso. "Teamwise, we had a little it of disappointment that we didn't make more noise at the county level. We lost a really close game to Johnson Regional by one goal in overtime. That's the type of a game where we want to try and use as a measuring stick. We were right there, we weren't able to get over the hump and we lost to them in the county semi-finals again."

The Cougars then went on to lose to perennial power Mountain Lakes in the state tournament. Now they have their sights set on taking on new foes in the upcoming season.

"It's more challenging than ever," Reinoso said. "We're actually in two different conferences, two new league alignments. The challenge is there in both. The state has moved us up a level. We're now in what is called the Waterman division, and that consists of school's with  longer, more established programs, so we'll be banging heads with them and there's bigger challenges there. And also the new Union County League, there's some of the big boys that we've been used to playing and there's also Summit, who was also the best team in the state and top 10 in the nation last year. Obviously the challenge is always there when you're confronting them."

But as they've proven before, the Cougars boys' lacrosse team will be ready for the task at hand.

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