St. Mary's Lax Book

Matt Hogan

and we had to dodge kids walking home from school across our fields during practice. However, we had 2 and a half fields and it was a place all of us could be together. At the end of that season, construction began on the Boys’ and Girls Club and we would never use that field again. The following year we scrambled for a field. We had tryouts at the Ruritan on 424 until parents from Severn School, who belonged to the Ruritan, thought it was inappropriate and we were asked to not use the field anymore. We had a parent, Chris Kelly, who was with Davidsonville arrange for us to use Riva Park. There were 3 fields and each team was assigned a field. It was a long drive and we did that for two years. We really struggled those two years and it wasn’t because of the practice fields. We had a number of issues that caused us to be “just okay.” The following year, Weems-Whalen was going to be torn up and replaced, therefore we were able to practice there but not play any games. It was the first year in which St. Mary’s did not play games at Weems, or “Weems Coliseum” as it became known. We played all of our home games at Broadneck High School. I think we were on Broadneck’s turf more than Broadneck was. We held all of our tryouts there for three days going 2-3 times a day. We were off of school but they were in school. Weems was a great location, close to school, and we had a “locker room” where we watched film. Riley Hansen and Pat Egan lined the field every other day. The field was entirely dirt, and we could not use paint to line the fields. We had a pallet of lime delivered and the guys used that to line the field. The sophomore class that year was huge in numbers and in talent. Six freshmen made the varsity: Joe Bonanni, JP Dalton, Ryan Lynch, Dana Frye, Peter Stewart, and Caleb Holt. Some of it was due to the ability of the freshmen and some of it was due to low enrollment in the upper classes. The school grew from 520 students to 560 students. We had tryouts one year at Washington College. More and more schools were putting in field- turf and the colleges were more than willing to allow us to use. We had two groups of players and had a couple of tryout periods each day. The next year we had tryouts at various locations. We bused to Washington College one day and then to various fields in the county. Since the county and the city would not open their fields until March 1 (we started practice around February 19th) we had to scramble for ten days. The first year we had the field-turf in 2007 was unreal. Since we had been using city and county fields, we had a number of practices cancelled. I felt we practiced one year in Marian Hall and the gym as much as we were outside. My first year we played two home games away and one home game at a neutral site so we could get them in. We practiced some years on Sunday nights at Broadneck and watched film by projecting it against the outside walls of the school. The field-turf off of Bestgate Road grew into what it is today much to the work and dedication of the Royal Blue Club and specifically Victor Lilly. It was originally presented as a practice field with no lights, no bleachers, no scoreboard, no PA system, no locker rooms… Slowly it evolved into what it is today – an outstanding high school stadium. It became a place to watch lacrosse for two reasons: one it was a great facility to watch games, and the level of lacrosse was much improved over the previous three years. When the house on the property finally became St.

2003-2010

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