April 6, 2022

Suffering Growing Pains in Opener against Shawnee, Inexperienced PDS Boys’ Lacrosse Squad Falls 11-4

HANDS-ON LEARNING: Princeton Day School boys’ lacrosse player Sebastian Rzeczycki, left, battles to get past a Shawnee High defender last Thursday in its season opener. Sophomore attackman Rzeczycki tallied two goals in the contest as PDS fell 11-4. On Saturday, Rzeczycki scored three goals as the Panthers lost 15-4 to Clearview. In upcoming action, PDS is slated to play at Hillsborough on April 9 and at Blair Academy on April 11. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

By Bill Alden

Joe Moore knew that his Princeton Day School boys’ lacrosse team faced a big challenge as it hosted Shawnee High in its season opener last Thursday.

“We are young and I think we have a long way to go from a leadership perspective so we are still finding ourselves in that area,” said PDS head coach Moore. “They returned a lot of players, which we knew. They were familiar with us.”

Showing its youth, PDS fell behind 4-1 by halftime and trailed 10-1 early in the fourth quarter on the way to an 11-4 defeat.

“The good thing is that the future is bright but now there are going to be growing pains,” said Moore, who got two goals from sophomore Sebastian Rzeczycki in the setback. “These guys are competitive, they know the opportunities that they have in front of them. We played a lot of freshmen and sophomores today. They are trying to find that confidence on the field.”

Moore has confidence that Rzeczycki along with sophomore Charlie Hogshire, sophomore Logan Hermann, and junior Oliver Hall can provide some scoring punch for the Panthers this spring.

“Sebastian is great, he is going to be our guy this year probably to command things and look to get shots,” said Moore of Rzeczycki who added three more goals in a 15-4 loss to Clearview last Saturday.

“One piece we were missing was Charlie. The two of them play really well together. Once we get him back on the field that will be good. Logan is a really good athlete and will be  contributor. Ollie is super-fast, he is a guy we will look to get the ball to and run offense through.”

At the defensive end of the field, Moore believes that senior goalie Jackson Cook, together with juniors defenders Will Brown and Ace Ewanchyna, can hold down the fort.

“Jackson was lights out, he was great,” said Moore of the senior who made 20 saves in the loss to Shawnee.

“I think our defense will really rely on Will and Ace. Those two guys are mature and experienced players that will contribute not just on the defensive end but they will be comfortable carrying across as well. Besides those guys, we have a lot of inexperienced guys, it will be mix and match with a lot of experimenting.”

The Panthers will be mixing and matching on
face-offs with freshman Asher Lewis and sophomore Nick Somogyi seeing action at the X.

“We have Asher taking a lot of face-offs, Somogyi is going to be taking the more physical X opponents,” said Moore.

“When they put a pole out there, we weren’t getting much out of it so we tried him for one or two. We will work between those two guys. Our wing play has to improve on face-offs. Nick and Asher are doing their part, we need the wing guys to do their part.”

While Moore had hoped for a better result on opening day, he is confident that his young squad will show a lot of improvement this spring.

“The biggest takeaway for our guys is just getting that experience and a game under our belts,” said Moore, whose team is slated to play at Hillsborough on April 9 and at Blair Academy on April 11.

“It didn’t matter who it was today; we just needed experience at this level. We are young and figuring it out. From an offensive perspective, we just have to find out how to create a rhythm and create more opportunities rather than forcing it to Sebastian. We need to focus on transitional play and clearing.”