After serving as the backup goalie for the Princeton Day School boys’ lacrosse team the last three years, Chris Markey started between the pipes as the Panthers opened the season by hosting Voorhees last week.

For Markey, moving up to the starring role was the reward after paying his dues.

“It has been a lot of hard work,” said Markey, who trained extensively with PDS head coach Rich D’Andrea, a former star goalie at Peddie and Georgetown.

“I worked a lot in the off season. I was on the field four or five days a week taking shots. Whenever I could find someone who wanted to shoot, I would come out here.”

Markey’s hard work paid off as he made 12 saves to help PDS top Voorhees 10-3 in the March 31 contest.

“I think as a whole I was being motivated by the rest of my team because they were all pushing me to do better,” said Markey.

The PDS team utilized talk and hustle to push past Voorhees. “Communication was a big part of it, letting people know where they were,” said Markey. “It was a lot of hard work making sure we got as many ground balls as we could.”

The Panthers have enjoyed getting to work under new head coach D’Andrea, a former assistant for the program, who succeeded Rob Tuckman after he stepped down last spring.

“He is awesome; it is great,” said Markey. “He is real informational so we are learning a lot of stuff and having fun.”

Markey has had a lot of fun with fellow seniors Jacob Shavel, Christian Vik, Chris Azzarello, and Kevin Towle.

“There is a lot of hard work in the senior class, putting in as much time as we can in the weight room and on the field most of the offseason,” said Markey.

All five PDS seniors have committed to play for college lacrosse programs with Marker headed to Muhlenberg.

“I am looking forward to it so much, all of the seniors are,” said Markey. “We are really happy about it.”

PDS coach D’Andrea was happy about the way his team jumped out to a 5-0 lead after the first quarter. against Voorhees

“The boys did a nice job controlling the pace of the game,” said D’Andrea. “I think that the last three years we have played Voorhees, it has been a one, two, or three goal game. It is typically a pretty tight game; it is one of those gritty cold games. The team that wins the most ground balls catches a couple of breaks and ends up winning so it was nice to jump out to that lead.”

Senior star Shavel led PDS with four goals and got after ground balls all game long. “Jacob did a great job,” said D’Andrea of the RPI-bound attacker/midfielder.

“We stressed ground balls and that was the one statistic that I was really pushing with the boys today and Jacob won our ball hawk award. He had six ground balls to lead the team so that was great senior leadership there. He is a kid who cares. One of Jacob’s most valuable attributes is his ability to get after the ball on rebounds, riding, and attack.”

Junior midfielder and Cornell-bound Connor Fletcher displayed his ability, tallying three goals and two assists.

“He is just a physical presence, he has a good sense of drawing a guy and getting rid of the ball to the next guy,” said Markey.

“He is a really unselfish player. I think above all offensively, we stress players being unselfish, and I think that is when we are at our best, when guys are willing to make the extra pass or two.”

Markey has shown that he was willing to keep his nose to the grindstone to earn his chance to start in goal.

“Chris has worked really, really hard, he is one of those success stories where he had a guy in front of him in Culver Duquette, who worked exceptionally hard,” said D’Andrea.

“He is a kid who has the respect of his teammates. He is a technical goalie in all ways. Part of the game plan today was if we did concede shots to give up the time and space shots and Chris just had a good bead on it today. He was ready to go and track the ball and control rebounds. For the most part, he made good decisions clearing the ball. He has really worked hard to develop a presence out of the net. That is one of the areas that he has been uncomfortable with; he has worked hard to develop that skill set and he did a nice job with it.”

The PDS defense showed some skill, spearheaded by senior Towle and junior Amir Melvin.

“We stayed in man defense the entire time today, there was some great inside support,” said D’Andrea, whose team fell 11-5 to Germantown Academy (Pa.) last Thursday and plays at Peddie on April 11 and Hopewell Valley on April 14.

“Kevin is a guy who works really hard on the wing, and he has been a utility guy for us for years. Kenyon is lucky to have him next year. He and Amir Melvin really anchored the defense today. They really communicated with some of the younger guys to just get them reps.”

All in all, D’Andrea was happy with his squad’s hard effort in the opener. “I think in a lot of ways it shows courage and heart for them to come out and play the way they did,” said D’Andrea.

“We talk about the difference between a good team and a great team. I think Voorhees played really hard and we were a good team today. I don’t think we were great, I don’t think we are nearly as polished as we need to be. But for your first game in late March here and the weather being cold and everything else, the energy was there as it had to be. Now we have to correct the mistakes.”

Markey, for his part, believes that PDS can do some great things this spring.

“We have a lot of hard workers on the team like last year and a lot of motivators on the team,” said Markey.

“So I think we are going to be in the same place as last year or maybe even better.”