Roosevelt lacrosse hits a groove toward season's end

KENT — That this Roosevelt boys lacrosse team is different is clear before the game even begins.

Just one look behind the home bench during Saturday's postseason opener against Poland Seminary told the story.

There were 16 placards perched in a neat line. Rough Riders coach Chris Idone has never had a senior class quite like this.

"We've got 16," Idone said. "It's more than I've ever had here. Usually the last few years, I've had four."

It's not just quantity.

It's quality, too.

Indeed, one of those seniors, Patrick Kirby, said this might be one the most talented teams in program history, behind only the 2020 team that never got to play a game due to COVID-19.

"That was the best team we've probably ever fielded," Kirby said. "Didn't get to play a game, and this is probably our next best team that we've had."

There was just one problem.

The Rough Riders couldn't catch a break early. losing nine of their first 13 games.

"We were losing and losing and losing and it's so demeaning but also you got to start somewhere," Kirby said. "We lost against Gilmour, and that was like the, 'Guys, we got to really pick it up, get these groundballs, get our sticks right, get our shots right."

Sure enough, the Rough Riders turned their season around right then and there, finishing this past week on a five-game win streak.

"It's been pretty fantastic," senior Griffin Pahls said. "We started off the season really slow, like we were losing games left and right and it just kind of clicked like, 'Hey, it's our senior year. We need to get in shape. We need to start doing well because we don't want to end up on a bad note. We don't want to have a losing record.' Once that clicked, we started moving and moving and we just kept our momentum up and we started picking each other up more."

Whereas early in the campaign, Roosevelt kept losing close games, including 5-4 to Walsh Jesuit, 9-7 to Hoban and 7-6 to Brecksville-Broadview Heights, the Rough Riders have won those tight games lately. Three of their five wins in a row have come by a single goal.

That wasn't the case Saturday, however.

Nope, the Rough Riders' massive Class of 2022 helped lead a dominant performance in their final game at Roosevelt Stadium.

The dominance started early, as Pahls notched a hat trick less than four minutes into the game. Pahls, who finished the afternoon with five goals, has become a dominant force of late inside and has helped fuel the Roosevelt attack during this win streak.

"He's really turned it on these last four or five games of kind of being our inside finisher," Idone said. "Against Copley, he had seven, which is a very good opponent, and today, he was just doing a good job, getting just enough open and he's slick enough with his stick where he can catch that and just finish right away."

Perhaps most important, Pahls has provided the perfect complement to leading scorer Milo Rosenberg, with Rosenberg an artful dodger from the outside and Pahls playing off that and finding openings closer to the cage.

"Milo is more of the dodger, the initiator of the dodge, of trying to draw a slide and beat his guy," Idone said. "Then, Griffin just kind of reacts off of how Milo works and they just have a good connection in there where Milo knows if he beats his guy and draws a slide that Griffin is going to be there and he'll catch it inside and finish one."

All of which is fueled by possession, of course, and that was something the Rough Riders had in spades Saturday thanks to superb work at the X from Danny Camp.

"Danny and Brad [Simms] are both very skilled there," Idone said. "They both work a lot and a lot of that is credit to our assistant coach [Jake] Ferlito. He's been our JV coach and our faceoff coach for 11 years now and every year we seem to have a confident faceoff guy because of Coach Ferlito."

For Kirby, a defender during soccer season but a long stick midfielder and thus somewhat of a point guard during the spring, it has been a joy to be a part of.

"It's always an evolution," Kirby said. "You just got to find what people like, what people prefer, and Milo prefers it on that X, get his dodge going, so if you can get it to him there, get G on the crease, you just got to find people's ins and outs and you got to work with them and if they work with you, then it's just that relationship and you can get some chemistry like we've had going on here."

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Roosevelt Rough Riders lacrosse catches fire, fueled by senior class