The Colonial Valley Conference, at least for this season, is down to 12 varsity boys lacrosse teams. Lawrence High and Hamilton High School West are only running junior varsity teams this spring, but for different reasons. Lawrence had only 20 boys register for lacrosse. Initially the Cardinals beli eved they could manage to get through the season, but ultimately, they decided that competing on the varsity level would not be feasible. Nick Bosted and Nick Brackett will coach this year’s JV team, which has only 14 players. “I think it’s best for the program to take a step back and build some confidence in the program where the kids are gonna have some fun competing at that level, opposed to really losing every game considerably and lowering their morale,” Lawrence athletic director Anthony Ammirata said. “It’s not gonna be good for their mental health, etcetera, so I think the best structure for us right now is to kind of rebuild the program, and I think this is the best path moving forward right now. We’ll reevaluate next school year and see where we are.” The hope is that Lawrence can resume playing varsity next spring in the CVC’s lowest division in order to compete and rebuild. Dan Brennan, who spent eight years developing Lawrence into a respectable CVC program, called it a “heartbreaking” turn of events. The Cardinals moved up from the Patriot Division to the Valley Division in 2022, and last year they won a program-record 13 games and the Mercer County Invitational championship. They also earned their highest seed ever in states. “I knew our numbers weren’t looking great the next year, but I didn’t think they were gonna drop to JV. I’m kind of surprised,” said Brennan, who decided prior to Lawrence going JV-only that, as a father with four children, he no longer wanted to be a head coach. He is now Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator. Lawrence graduated half of last year’s 26-man roster, and even though the township has a youth program starting with Pre-K, Brennan says the numbers have been down since COVID-19. The Cardinals fielded both varsity and JV teams in 2019 because they had more than 30 players, but after that they went varsity-only because their numbers hovered in the 20s. The public school has also faced the challenge of kids defecting to places like Notre Dame, Hun, Lawrenceville and Princeton Day. “That will never change. That’s a battle we’ve been fighting since the inception of the school,” said Ammirata, a Lawrence High graduate who used to coach lacrosse. “Has that had an impact? Yeah, definitely. Other than that, it’s inexplicable. I don’t know why kids aren’t opting to play lacrosse or try lacrosse. I can’t really put my finger on it. We have 150 kids in our track and field program.” Lawrence is seeking to boost the high school lacrosse turnout by hosting the youth league for practices at the turf field and having representatives promote the sport at the school. Another idea is that Lawrence, if necessary, could form a co-op with Ewing High, a nearby school that has also had problems with numbers in lacrosse. Ammirata is reluctant to go that route because the logistics aren’t as easy as they appear. First, both district boards would need to approve it, along with the NJSIAA. Then comes the question of what the branding of the program would be, followed by the issue of transportation given the lack of labor within the bus system. “It’s pretty cumbersome, to be honest with you,” Ammirata said. “Additionally, it’s a three-year contract. All co-ops are three-year deals, and I don’t know if that’s something that we want to get into right now.” Hamilton West athletic John Costantino says those contracts can be opted out of, but the fact remains that co-ops are a challenging endeavor. Hamilton West is in its third year as a softball co-op with Nottingham, and after four years it has broken off a boys lacrosse co-op with Nottingham. “Co-ops are tough,” Costantino said. “Even with us with softball, it’s a tough situation when you have kids from one school, kids from another school. Where are you practicing? The availability of buses after school is horrendous, to say the least, so it does make it very difficult on the coaches as far as the communication, just the coordination of buildings. It’s not easy.” Nottingham has strong enough numbers now to field its own varsity boys lacrosse team, but the separation from Hamilton West was a mutual decision, according to Costantino. “We found that a lot of kids weren’t going out for lacrosse because we were a co-op,” Costantino said. “We were forced into a co-op just because the numbers were so low at one point.” Hamilton West’s numbers are relatively solid now — six seniors, five juniors, 13 sophomores and one freshman — but the Hornets want to hone their skills as a JV team under coach Armond Trotto because they consist mostly of first-year lacrosse players and others who lack game experience. Costantino initially expected the program to break off from Nottingham last year, but it was in everyone’s best interests to wait. The plan is to have a varsity team again next year. “We’re in a situation where we need to build a program,” Costantino said. “We think it’s just a better situation to play teams that are a little more skilled and give our kids an opportunity to really learn the game of lacrosse at that level before going to varsity.” ...read more read less