MLHS TOC Championship!
- Thread starter OJRutgers
- Start date
north jersey dominance...the fact that Mountain Lakes a group 1 school has being doing it for this long is a credit not only to Coach Flynn, but a reflection of the town that doesn't lose kids to private schools like many other Morris or Somerset County towns. ..if Booton Township kept kids in the Town of Boonton (moved to Mountain Lakes in 1991) i doubt their dominance would be this dramatic...
Add to that ML was an early mover in youth lacrosse, starting youth programs in '76 or '77. John Walters, an AA attackman for Dartmouth in the early 60s was one of the movers.
Nice to see public schools succeeding in at least one sport in NJ.
Are the top NJ lacrosse teams playing good teams from Maryland and Long Island?
With Tournaments of Champions coming to an end in NJ, Group 1’s Mountain Lakes might have to travel a bit more to bolster their schedule.
Are the top NJ lacrosse teams playing good teams from Maryland and Long Island?
With Tournaments of Champions coming to an end in NJ, Group 1’s Mountain Lakes might have to travel a bit more to bolster their schedule.
Mountain Lakes' lacrosse tradition as a Group 1 school is truly remarkable. Their ability to retain kids that might otherwise go to private school, particularly in such a wealthy town, is really amazing. How much does that affinity for public education extend to the State university?
Why? they will be the favorite to win group 1 every year for the foreseeable future. They beat several teams who beat out of state teams. Public schools are being sold short inside lacrosse as it disregards public schools because it says they don't play a national schedule. They also don't recruit nationally.
Playing teams from Long Island is tough as their schedule is slightly different, everyone is ok with playing crossover games but you need to 2 to tango.
I asked because without the TOC won’t Mountain Lakes have a few less high caliber opponents to play? I assume most of Mountain Lakes Group 1 games are name-your-score games.
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Caz Kotsen (ND) is the only real player as far as I know. He played under Apel at 2KL so getting coached by two of the greats was a privilege. Average size but a great athlete, kid can shoot with anyone.
I’m sure I’m missing a few but below is what I could find on the others. Rumson had way more talent but ML just had a bunch of D3 seniors who fought hard for each other. Still amazed at that scoreline against basically a full team of D1 commits.
Caz Kotsen - Notre Dame
Reid Tietjen - Haverford
Bradford Goodbar - Bucknell
Cade Schuckman - Williams College
John Lane - Washington & Lee
Kevin Gillespie - Gettysburg
Ben Buzby - McGill
the play some traditionally high caliber teams... Delbarton, Chatham, RIdgewood, Begen Catholic and St. Joes.......
...other towns are pretty close to them for youth lacrosse programs when you look at numbers.. I'm sure JW was the anonoymous donor in the early years to fund the program so his son could play.....the combination of a wealthy town where kids do not attend private schools and coach flynn is tough to beat...without Boonton Twp kids (since 91) they would probably be one of the smallest Group 1 teams and not sure have this high level of success. ..
The public education affinity applies to North Carolina, UVa, and Maryland.
Here at the Jersey shore I don't see anyone toppling Rumson soon. Wall, Manasquan, CBA and a few others will challenge but Rumson has talent coming up throughout the youth levels.
Towns may be pretty close now, but in '76-'77 youth programs in NJ could be counted on 1 hand. Public school - prep school programs combined only totaled around 40. Fair Lawn was the only Bergen County program. ML was way ahead of the game and it's still paying dividends.
I Love Caz and his game, good player great kid. Caz is not going to ND to play he is going as a student, that is what is great about this team, no offensive superstars just a great team that was better than the sum of its parts.
Ryan McLaughlin is there LSM and he is going to UPenn
Lucas Sawransky was committed to playing at Union (played in D3 finals)
Wow, shows how much I know…I assume Caz could play at the D1 level just is choosing not to? Maybe not ND level but still. He’s a big game player. 10 goals in the TOC’s semis and final, 7 goals in their two wins over Delbarton, another 4 against Chatham…
Sometimes guys who are the beneficiaries in high school aren't always the best suited for the big time college game. We had one on my hs team senior year. We had 8 D1 guys and handful of D3 guys and it was a kid who never played at any level after high school who had 5 goals in the championship game.
