The men’s lacrosse team has had an exciting opening month to its spring season, including a community service event in Easton and a trip to The Ohio State University to play at its state-of-the-art lacrosse stadium.
On Jan. 18, the team hosted sixth graders from the Easton area for the School Day Basketball Game. Coach Patrick Myers said this event, which was organized with the help of athletic director Sherryta Freeman, engaged about 1,200 students from the Easton community and promoted physical well-being. Myers said this was a good leadership opportunity for the team, as they were able to volunteer as “court leaders” and organize the chaos that is children participating in games on a college campus.
After spending time with the students and playing games together, they then headed over to Fisher Stadium to cheer on the women’s basketball team during its midweek win against American University, 59-57. Myers said that the team makes an effort to attend other sports’ games and show support, especially during their off-season.
“From women’s soccer, men’s soccer, field hockey, our guys make a huge effort to really support other teams,” he said. “We definitely want to promote school pride, and hopefully they’ll return the favor this spring.”
After the School Day Basketball Game, the team traveled to Ohio last weekend for a preseason scrimmage. Myers said that his brother Nick Myers is the head coach of the Buckeyes, and this event gave the team the opportunity to travel together before the season starts and to play a competitive top-10 opponent.
“I think it creates team cohesion and connection, and we certainly came back from that trip a better team than we were when we left,” he said.
He said that this particular trip was even more special because Ohio State was opening its brand-new lacrosse stadium.
In addition to these exciting events, the team prepared for the spring with workouts led by strength and conditioning coach Steve Plunkett as well as player-led meetings over Zoom. They are also reading the book “Legacy” by James Kerr to help build up team culture.
Coming up on year five with this team, Myers said he is making progress on the team culture he would like to build.
“This team is the first team of all kids that we recruited here to be a part of the cultural blueprint that we’ve created,” he said. “We talk about hard work, toughness, brotherhood. But it’s really a culture of serving the community. I was really proud of our guys for winning the Sticks and Service Community Service Award from the IMLCA [Intercollegiate Men’s Lacrosse Coaches Association], which is our national governing body.”
This season, Myers said the team will face a challenging schedule but plans to make the Patriot League tournament and be the best student-athletes they can be.
“I think we’ve really created an attitude of gratitude here. We say, ‘Grateful for everything, entitled to nothing.’ And we set our record for highest GPA in program history this fall with a 3.5,” Myers said. “It’s a culture of competitiveness, a culture of humility and gratitude and it’s a culture of a group of guys that want to win.”
The men’s lacrosse team will officially open their season against Big Ten competitor Penn State next Saturday at 1 p.m.
