The harsh, brisk, wind chill of a Tuesday night in the heart
of downtown Boston was enough to make you not want to be there. Located just off
Commonwealth Ave, Wentworth Institute of Technology’s campus could not be more
opposite than Endicott’s. The sights and sounds of Boston comprised the
school’s home field advantage. All throughout the game sirens were going off as ambulances and police cars sped by the field. Although Wentworth
boasted brand new turf possessing a soft, rug-like feel, I got the sense not
many of my teammates were “amped” to play the lowly Wentworth Leopards. The
mission was simple - to get in, do our job (come away with the win), and get
out; not losing any men of course.
4:00 - Departure
Departing Endicott College for our team is always a bit of
an ordeal. As a junior, through first-hand experiences, I have learned arriving
at the bus early is an absolute must. You don’t want to be the freshman who
arrives late, doesn’t end up with a seat, and has to drive to the game with the
ineligible and injured kids – it is one of the worst feelings ever. You also
don’t want to be the kid who doesn’t end up with a seat and - god forbid - has
to sit next to a coach at the very front of the bus….yikes.
Although we look the part in our professional suit and ties,
once on the bus, things could not be more hectic and un-controlled. It is a
full on scramble for seats. Shoving your lacrosse bag and sticks on the bus
isn’t that bad, but has to be done before anything else. Next factor in
swarming kids to the food placed outside the bus at every departure. The
sandwiches, chips, cookies and waters in stacks next to the bus door only added fuel
to the fire.
A saving grace for this entire process is that each person
on the team has a bus-mate. As bus-mates, it is each of our civic duties to act
as a two man team. Whichever team member is there first, they claim a seat. My
bus mate is Jimmy Smith a fellow junior. He’ll tell you firsthand the struggles
of what it was like scrounging for a spot on the bus as a freshman. Jimbo and I
have been bus-mates since joining the team, and as seasoned vets we’ve got the
process down. We coordinate who’s going to be there first via text. It’s a
solid system and we get our seats every time.
Clearly demonstrating ownership of a territory on the bus is
done in a certain number of ways. This is done by placing bigger or valuable
belongings such as your backpack, iPad, iPod, sweats, sweatshirt, phone, or
shoes on a seat. The spoken word of promising seats won’t cut it and has no
place here, especially for underclassmen, it’s a dog eat dog world on the bus.
You would think that, as educated college kids, we would
just sit in the same exact seats every single trip right?Wrong. It doesn’t work
out quite like that. Sure as upperclassmen we pretty much get the same seats
every time, but when it comes to getting situated on the bus, it’s about as rough as it gets. The bus isn’t the same model everytime, so rows are shifted and
bus-mates are moved around. It’s a process needing improvement for sure. We
aren’t animals, we’re men.
5:00-6:00 - Locker
Room
Once at Wentworth, we got off the bus to take our stuff to
the locker room. The locker room at this particular school seemed to be a
half-mile away. We had to cross two streets as a team (45 kids) – talk about angry
Mass-holes. It was an extremely small locker room compared to all the other
schools I have been to and smelled like hot stuffy musk.
In the locker room you usually have a solid chunk of time to
do whatever it is you want. We had an hour that evening. Kids use this time to
go see the trainer to get stretched out, tape up their sticks, check out to the
field and pass around, play games on their iPods, listen to music to get in “the
zone”, pack lips (forcing freshmen to chug their water so the bottle can be
used as a spitter is common), or even to take naps.
This was an especially odd set up for a locker room because
there was a big maroon door leading to where Wentworth’s players were in the
room adjacent to us. Now, the locker room we were in had showers, urinals and
stalls – typical of any locker room. Wentworth’s players kept opening the
maroon door to go to the bathroom and use the sinks…..
This is highly, highly, highly uncommon in sports,
especially college sports. That the other team, just freely cuts through the
other team’s personal space. I know it is Division III, but c’mon. Coach
Sciamanna, our assistant coach, conveyed the team’s thoughts perfectly, “What
the fuck do they think this is a JV game? Jesus.” He was right.We don’t want to
see, hear, or converse with the enemy before a game. Only when we are in the
right mental state of mind do we want to engage in any sort of contact, which
happens on the field at the start of the lacrosse game. Lines of Wentworth
players were just passing through our preparation zone as if we had known them
for years. Making for an odd ambiance in the locker room is an understatement.
How nice the new turf was seemed to be the main concern as
our team walked in two lines up to the
turf. There was
chit-chat instead of hootin’ and holleran’….not good. Only adding to this
already odd state of mind, the sound system at Wentworth was atrocious. It
sounded like their warm-up music was playing out of an iHome.
Being injured, just standing there on the sideline with the
other two injured guys and the athletic training staff can be fun – for about 5
minutes. It is really tough to watch your team; your brothers go out there and
compete. Our coach preaches each and every day that we are a
family; it’s even on the back of our shirts.
I play defense, so when the offense and defense break off; I
go support my fellow defenseman. An Endicott tradition which I learned my
freshman year was to “dap em’ up”. This is a slang word for giving a cool hand
shake. Think high-five, but turn your hand around so you high-five with the
back of your hand. Everyone on Endicott’s defense daps each other up; a true
pre-game ritual.
6:50 - 7:00 – National
Anthem & Starting Line-ups announced
Honestly the energy was not high, I can tell you that much.
During the National Anthem kids were silently making each other laugh, goofing
around..…I felt this lack of focus when we first came onto the field for
warm-ups. Endicott has never lost to Wentworth Tech in the history of the
school. This is a game on the calendar every year where it is known that
“everybody eats”. This means all players from the starters down to the 4th
string guys (freshmen) get playing time. All of us came into this match with
this feeling we were going to absolutely demolish this shitty Wentworth team no
problem.
7:00 – Opening
Face-off
Right off the bat, we notched one. Good sign. Then we each traded
a goal until Wentworth got a couple more quickies. Fellow injured player John
Siderwitz may have said it best, “Wow are we really losing to FUCKING Wentworth
right now….”
End of the 1st:
Endicott 2 - Wentworth 4
The second quarter started with a bang as the Leopards
scored right away to make it 2 – 5….this was not good. *Timeout* Endicott.
After getting our bearings and talking things over, we went on a little Gull
run. Scoring four in a row to tie it was huge for us.
End of the 2nd:
Endicott 6 – Wentworth 6
At half we always head down to a corner and take a knee. Our
coaches usually talk to us, give us a debrief, make changes and give us some
sort of speech; not today. Today our senior leaders spoke. Everything was said,
our coaches didn’t need to say anything at all. We rallied and our spirits
could not have been higher.
I had thought to myself the whole game that freshman year we
beat Wentworth 22-3, and last year we beat them 17-5….was this year’s team
really that bad?
End of half-time
To everyone’s surprise, the 3rd quarter was all
Wentworth. They netted two, and we had nothing to show. This wasn’t a question
of effort, it was there. Discipline might explain it though.Through 3 quarters
we had five penalties, that’s five minutes of man-down lacrosse, resulting in
at least five goals; a rough stat for sure.
End of the 3rd:
Endicott 6 – Wentworth 8
Wentworth once again opened up the scoring making it 6 – 9.
We kept up hope. Hope that no way we were going to be the team that finally
concedes to Wentworth. We punched in two fast ones making it a one goal game at
8 – 9. With just under 7 minutes left Wentworth would tally a huge goal for
them, padding their lead by one more.
This is where hard work and the will to win kicks in. We
went on a tear, and scored three goals in two minutes to put us up by a single
point making it 11 -10. Playing lockdown defense the rest of the game, we made
Wentworth’s offense look anemic the final minutes.
Final: Endicott 11 –
Wentworth 10
9:00 – Ride Home
Reflecting. We stole one from a Wentworth team that came to
play, and should have won that game. The body language of the entire bus was
eerie. It wasn’t that everyone was negative as if we had lost, but disappointed
and disgusted rather. A win is a win, but the ride home was not nearly as
joyous as any other win was.
On the east coast, as a general rule I have learned from playing
lacrosse at this level that you can never win on talent alone. Any team, on any
given day, can win. I firmly believe this.
A valuable lesson for athletes in general playing team
sports is to know there are ingredients needed for every win,
as reiterated
time and time again to our team by Coach Sean Quirk. They are:
-You have to be disciplined
-Confident not cocky
-Play as a TEAM rather than a bunch of individuals
-Work hard the full 60 minutes, not just in the last minutes
of the game
We fell short of accomplishing all four principles against
Wentworth Tech. Once back at campus before we got off the bus, Coach Quirk got
on the P.A. system of the bus and announced practice was at 6 a.m. the next day
and to bring our running shoes….
God damnit were the first two words out my
mouth. My bus-mate took his headphones off and said “I saw that one coming”. I’ve
come a long way since being a freshman I thought as I tossed my bag of chips on
the grimy bus floor. Then came the classic yells “FRESHMEN, CLEAN THE BUS” – a really long way.
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