Boys’ Lacrosse Pulls Off an Astounding 14-6 Season
It seemed as if a great era had truly drawn to a close. Big Red boys’ lacrosse graduated about half of its roster last season, and the presence of Under Armour All Americans Chris Keating and Matt Ryan was sorely missed. The team was off to a sputtering start with a 2-2 record, not including a scrimmage loss against Bridgton to open the season, and they had just dropped two consecutive games with a combined score of 11-28. The glory days of going weeks on end without a loss loomed near.
“It was clear at that point that there was a lot of work to be done,” senior co-captain David Ayscue said. “For many of the games we had really beaten ourselves. We made lots of mistakes—very coachable mistakes—and we had holes in our strategy from inexperience.”
As the season began, however, Big Red looked sloppy and clearly out of sync. The players had trouble picking up ground balls, and the level of play was inconsistent. To make things worse, the team entered a soft spot in their schedule, and Exeter’s opponents lacked the quality to exploit the squad’s weaknesses, leaving the boys unprepared for the perfect storm that arrived at Phelps Stadium on a cold, rainy Wednesday afternoon midway through the season. Underdogs New Hampton pounced on a flat Exeter team for the 5-8 upset.
“New Hampton took us by surprise, and we knew that we were a lot more capable than we had shown,” Ayscue said.
“At that point in the season, we were going into the stretch run and we wanted to prove that we were better than that,” he continued. “We realized that our season was coming to an end and that we didn’t have much time left, especially for the seniors, and the lack of time definitely came to play a bigger role as the year went on.”
The newfound sense of urgency provided a peek into Big Red lacrosse’s bright future. Determined to rebound strongly, the team travelled to Loomis and gutted out a tough, 7-5 victory. The subsequent loss against Brewster may have been disappointing, but the squad put up a much tougher fight than many had anticipated, keeping the deficit at one or two goals for the vast majority of the game.
Then Exeter welcomed Tabor to Phelps Stadium. The boys braced for yet another scrappy contest but found themselves dominating from the start.
“I think we almost surprised ourselves against Tabor,” prep Mac Perry said. “It really gave us confidence knowing that we were capable of playing at that level.”
The game finished 16-8, as Big Red raced to their self-assessed best performance of the season. From that point on, emulating the Tabor game became the approach for every subsequent fixture, and the boys sustained their high level of play, cruising past KUA and coming home with a hard-fought win at NMH.
By the time Senior Day rolled around, Exeter was firing on all cylinders, and an upset victory against visiting favorites Deerfield didn’t seem as ludicrous of an idea as it had seemed just a couple weeks prior. After two goals apiece from senior co-captain Nick du Pont and post-graduate Peter Anastos and one from Ayscue, the elusive Deerfield win was within touching distance with about five minutes left on the clock.
When upper Winston Smith readied for the face-off just a few minutes later, however, Big Red found themselves staring at a three-goal deficit. Deerfield had completed a stunning comeback, and the decades-long wait would have to continue for at least another year. Exeter fell 5-8.
The team then blew past Holderness in a 17-4 romp, but it was unable to finish the season on a high note, suffering a 7-12 loss on the road against archrivals Andover, which capped off what had been an equally exhilarating and frustrating season. It was a spring of growth and progress, as the young squad showed tantalizing glimpses into its wealth of ability despite the growing pains.
It would be unfair, though, to merely chalk this up as a “transition” or “rebuilding” season. Although they struggled at points during the spring, Exeter snapped off six consecutive victories after their slow start, and they compiled a strong 14-6 overall record: only one game off the pace from last year’s 14-5 squad.
“I think [2014] was a good season on its own,” Ayscue said. “Tabor, NMH, even Deerfield and St. Seb’s—those were the kind of performances that showed that this wasn’t just a stepping stone season and that we were capable of playing very well now.”
Reflecting on his final spring as a part of Exeter lacrosse, the co-captain praised the team’s attitude during the season and looked ahead to the promising coming years.
“A lot our players were much younger. We didn’t have many seniors, and only a few of us are even playing lacrosse in college,” Ayscue said. “But that aspect, being younger, made the team more cohesive.
“You had sophomores playing with seniors on the same line,” he continued. “They had the enthusiasm of being young, being new starters, being expected to step up into a big role. They took on the challenge, and there were no slackers. It was always about getting better, which was actually different from most years. Everyone wanted to win badly every single game.“
Ayscue was also optimistic about the team’s future with head coach Bill Glennon at the helm after the former assistant coach guided Big Red through his first campaign this spring. Glennon has a winning pedigree, having coached Division III teams Hampden-Sydney College and Rochester Institute of Technology, the latter to four Final Four berths in the NCAA Tournament, and Ayscue seemed confident that it is only a matter of time until Glennon’s winning mentality takes hold at Exeter.
“I think having a coaching change definitely shakes things up,” Ayscue said, “because a different coach brings in different players, different recruiting schemes and a different coaching style. Coach Glennon is a tried and true winner in his days of coaching at the collegiate level.”
“I think a win against Deerfield is imminent, and I would be surprised if the team isn’t one of the best in New England within the next two years, or maybe even next year,” Ayscue said.