‘Perfect storm’: Why Connecticut high school lacrosse participation numbers are fluctuating

First-year Law coach Mike Ayala could see his new boys lacrosse team was in trouble as tryouts began in March. “We started out on the low-low side, about 14,” Ayala said, and low-low might be an understatement in a Class M program with over a decade behind it. Though the sport has been knocking on the door of 100 CIAC varsity programs, many teams have seen their numbers fluctuate the past few years around the pandemic. Some worked to supplement their rosters. Some sat out. There appeared to be decently complete rosters on the CIAC’s website for the past three seasons (2019, 2021, 2022) for 95 teams, as compiled in the first week of May. Of those 95, for 41, the 2021 roster was smallest. (Coincidentally, 23 programs had their smallest roster of those three seasons in 2022, and 23 had their smallest in 2019. The other eight had two seasons tied for the smallest.) Of those 41, 13 rebounded this season to their 2019 levels, but 28 did not. “I think it’s a little bit of everything,” said Foran coach Brian Adkins, long involved in the sport throughout the region. “Maybe kids, I talked to them about it last year: ‘Do you want to play and get out of your house?’ Just so they would stay active. I think kids need it.” Haddam-Killingworth dipped from 38 three years ago to 33 last year in a conference-championship season to 24 this year. Though it went on to repeat as Shoreline Conference champions and reached the Class S semifinals, the team had to forfeit its last regular-season game. Athletic director Lynne Flint said at the time it “just didn’t have enough healthy players.” Dave Howes and the St. Bernard/Wheeler co-op have been there. The team played one game in 2021. Its last 10 were forfeit losses. Howes became coach in 2020 for a team that had no juniors. That season was lost to the virus. The 2021 season started out with just over a dozen players. Injury and other factors soon left them with nine in a sport where 10 start. “It was a bit of a perfect storm,” Howes said. “We didn’t even have that (2020) year. That might have encouraged some kids to come out and give it a try. ... Maybe COVID discouraged a lot of kids from either trying a new sport or, kids who played lacrosse before, committing to a season.” Prince Tech in Hartford got off the ground with a five-game schedule last year and a 19-man listed roster. It forfeited its last two games last year and all 11 this year. The news is far from all dreary: 27 teams had more players listed this year than either 2019 or 2021, and 12 of those gained each year. The funny part may be that four of those 12 were top-10 teams to start with: Staples (Class L champions for the first time), Ridgefield, Fairfield Prep (both semifinalists), New Canaan (traditional state power who made the quarterfinals). But it also includes smaller programs like Old Saybrook, which had dipped to 16 players three years ago and is back up to 30. ‘Bona fide’ McMahon had 82 players in its program in 2019. Then after the pandemic, that number was cut in half last year. “This year we’re at 54. We’re definitely going up,” coach Joe Smith said. “If we have a little success on the field, the numbers will go up next year, too. “The problem is we’re split with Norwalk (High). You always have that balance.” At Norwalk, Jon Wilkins also took over as coach in 2020, just before a season that didn’t happen. “We had 65 players registered at the first meeting,” Wilkins said, a little ahead of what’s on the Bears’ 2019 roster. “COVID took the season away. The next season, there came to tryouts 36 players. This year we had 44 come to tryouts. “We’d graduated a big class, so we didn’t see that much growth.” Where Wilkins did notice an impact from the pandemic is that some of the bigger lacrosse schools in the bigger lacrosse towns didn’t take the blows that some others did. “What we’re seeing a lot of on these ‘fringe’ lacrosse teams, Norwalk, McMahon, Stamford, Westhill, we have a lot of multi-sport athletes putting a lot of impetus on their primary sport,” Wilkins said. “’I’m going to stick with club soccer rather than play lacrosse.’ They missed the season before. “We don’t have a lot of bona fide lacrosse players.” Stamford has been fortunate, coach Mike Nazzaro said, and has had the numbers to field a varsity, JV and freshman team. “We also have a feeder system at Stamford Lacrosse Association, which is our youth program,” Nazzaro said, “which gets kids involved in elementary school.” He added that lacrosse is expected to be part of the city’s physical education curriculum. Wilkins can look with optimism across town, where McMahon had a winning season. He thinks his team, which finished 6-10, is headed in the right direction as well. But it’s tough in the FCIAC, full of longtime state powers. The Bears had just completed their third-to-last practice of the season before a game against New Canaan when he answered the phone. “We’re still doing passing drills,” he said, adding that the Rams were probably practicing intricate defensive schemes. Law had just three seniors this year. Their class was 12 deep as juniors on last year’s roster. “Some of those are with the track team, because they were good in indoor,” Ayala said. “Some just decided it wasn’t for them.” When Ayala, who grew up in Trumbull, saw what he had at Law this year, he got to recruiting. A few freshmen talked classmates into joining the program. A football player picked up a stick. Ayala scoured the baseball team’s cuts. “I reached out via email, sent a text if I could get their number,” Ayala said. “Five out of nine stuck with us. That helped us out on the JV numbers side.” The team got up to around two dozen players, a smidgen smaller than last year but a far cry from 14. The Lawmen finished 6-10. Across town, Foran has more like four dozen players. The Lions went 11-7 and qualified for the SCC tournament. “The benefit is having a son who’s a junior and another son in eighth grade,” Adkins said. “I’ve been coaching at the youth level awhile. We’ve been recruiting pretty hard between my two boys. We have a very big junior class, a very large freshman class.” Adkins said he started a camp in Milford in 1999, before the schools had lacrosse teams, with four kids. It has grown to more than 100 participants. Youth lacrosse participation figures, locally and beyond, weren’t immediately available, but Adkins said the teams he sees around the region “have healthy rosters.” And, naturally, coaches who need to keep their own numbers up are keeping an eye on who may be coming through those programs to their schools. “It’s good for the whole sport that youth seems to be bouncing back,” Wilkins said. “Everyone seems to be gung-ho ... there are more parents involved, more spectators.” Building culture, numbers Ayala tried to encourage camaraderie at the beginning of the season with things like family dinners. “At the beginning of the year we tried to make it as fun as possible,” Ayala said. “Besides the wins and losses, we’re trying to establish a culture.” Howes used the same word, building St. Bernard/Wheeler a culture where kids have fun and recruit their friends to play. Howes’ son, Ben, is a freshman this year, and that helped bring in a 16-freshman group that rebuilt numbers. There were seven seniors and only three players from the 10th and 11th grades. Still, both schools are small. The CIAC uses the previous year’s enrollments to sort teams into classes for the state playoffs. For 2020-21, St. Bernard’s and Wheeler’s combined boys enrollment was 214. Class L runner-up Darien’s roster alone lists 108 players. The co-op’s two athletic directors, Ellen Turner at Wheeler and Sue Griffin at St. Bernard, supported the program through the tough year, Howes said. And those nine remaining players, “those nine kids came to practice every single day,” in 2021, he said. He and a recent graduate taking a gap year suit up to practice with them. Stonington invited them to practice. They scrimmaged Ledyard. This year, the co-op finished 5-9 and got its season back. “I felt really good about that,” Howes said. “We were .500 in the conference. I felt good about that. Most importantly, the seniors had that positive season they’ve been waiting for since freshman year.” mfornabaio@ctpost.com; @fornabaioctp

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