Will Rodriguez has been Cardinal Hayes’ leading scorer the last two seasons. (Denis Gostev)
The word lacrosse wasn’t uttered and likely not thought about around Cardinal Spellman and Cardinal Hayes as recently as three years ago. Now the two Bronx schools are playing in their first CHSAA varsity boys lacrosse season and are budding rivals in the sport.
“The rivalry is definitely there, especially Hayes,” said Spellman junior Germain Ngaba, also a star running back on the football team. “We are basing our progress on theirs. When we play them, if we beat them, we know we are doing better than them.”
Spellman won the first of two meetings this year 6-3 and also competed in its first-ever Mayor’s Cup event at Randall’s Island Sunday. They meet again in both teams’ final regular-season game in the CHSAA’s Class A division.
“We like to have them as a measuring stick, a program in the Bronx a couple of years in,” first-year Hayes coach Joe Adamiak said of Spellman.
That’s because the programs are growing up together.
Spellman, which also has a girls squad, started its team a year earlier with the help of assistant football coach Kyle O’Donnell and current senior Marc Greko. The midfielder saw his friends playing lacrosse upstate and despite playing baseball all his life he pushed to have the school start a team, something that fellow CHSAA Bronx schools St. Raymond and Mount St. Michael already had. The game’s fast pace was appealing.
“It’s a great feeling to be official,” Greko said. “It’s better competition so it’s more fun. We get more out of it.”
It began as a club team and a year later they played a JV schedule against both CHSAA and Bronx Ivy League schools among others. They built the program by telling kids from around school, who they felt would be committed, many who played other sports, to come try out. Spellman is currently 2-1 in league and 2-2 overall.
“We went around and talked to guys and said you should come out and play, because you know how they are in the other sport,” said first-year Pilots coach Joe Hollaran, who credits assistants Al Cawley and Brian Zambri. “They work at it. You figure that they are going to give the same effort.”
Maximum effort is something Adamiak, who played at Cobleskill College, feels he is getting from his players at Hayes despite their early struggles. The Cardinals have only had a team for just two years and are already playing against establish squads like St. Joseph by the Sea, Xaverian and St. Francis Prep and St. Mary’s and St. Dominic on Long Island.
“Even though it is their first season and their first games, they are taking all the losses hard,” he said. “That’s awesome to see. Even in the [Mayor’s Cup] they are taking the losses hard. You can tell they really care about getting better with the program.”
It was started with the funding of donor Kevin Reid and a year ago when they only played scrimmage games. The players say it’s been a tough transition. As the new team in the league goalie Eddie Bautista said opponents lick their chops when they play them. It’s something that’s only brought them together despite a 1-3 league start.
“We know we have to step our game up,” said Bautista, who was a catcher growing up. “We know we are just starting. We try to take practice seriously and our games seriously.”
They also take pride in helping in the growth of the game in areas of The Bronx it might not normally have been played. Hayes attack Will Martinez, the team’s leading scorer, said he sees more kids carrying sticks on the busses and trains. But he is hoping for even more for a borough that is also home to Ivy League powers Fieldston, Riverdale and Horace Mann and defending PSAL champion Columbus.
“I want it to spread a lot,” said Martinez, who gave up running track to join the team. “So we can actually put goals in The Bronx. When we go to a park and stuff, you can go to a football field, a soccer field and stuff, but there are no lacrosse fields so it’s tough on us because we can’t practice.”
Lacrosse gives students who play other sports another outlet to compete outside of baseball, volleyball or track on the spring. For others it is their lone sport and something they can grow as a person and an athlete playing.
“The best thing about it is it gets 30 kids to play a legitimate sport,” Holleran said. “These 30 kids with us, they weren’t playing right now. They might be working out, they might be doing something, but it wouldn’t be giving their all everyday of the week.”
The same way they play when each other is across the field. Just three years ago it was something that wouldn’t have been fathomed.
“The kids know each other from football, basketball, whatever they play,” Adamiak said. “We have Spellman highlighted on our schedule.”