Connor Lamb is in his second year as head coach of the Fenwick boys lacrosse team, and while he’s got plenty of talent to work with, he does have a major intangible opponents won’t have — that being, the benefit of a lot of players who won a football state championship last fall.
“They know what it takes to get the job done and they hold people up to their standards,” Lamb said ahead of his team’s first game of the season Friday, a 14-5 win over Riverside-Brookfield at Triton College, where senior attackman Jack Lotito had five goals.
Senior attackman Duffy Monahan is one of those football players who beat East St. Louis last fall in the IHSA Class 6A state championship game.
“I feel like the football players bring a different kind of intensity to lacrosse,” Monahan said Friday. “From the football early-morning weights, we know how to be disciplined, and I feel like we carry that into our lacrosse program, which is going to show this season. We’re going to be a gritty team, exactly how we were in football and I feel like that’s what’s going to lead us to win a lot of big games.”
Michael Murphy is another senior football player, who plays defense for the Friars.
“When we’re in a close game, we know what it’s like, what it takes to win and how to push our guys over the edge,” Murphy said. “We also bring the intensity. Nothing beats that intensity.”
Of course, in order to be effective on offense, it’s an absolute necessity to have a solid faceoff guy. Monahan is one of them, but there is another in senior Zikomo Mbewe – also a football player.
“He is very big and he’s very strong,” Lamb said. “He’s got wrestling hands; they’re super-fast and we’re betting on him to be able to fold over the other guy’s stick. I’m excited to see what he can do.”
Another nice intangible for Lamb will be the international experience gained by senior defenseman Robert Arroyo. He played for the Mexican national lacrosse team at the World Lacrosse Championship last year in South Korea.
“He’s probably our best on-ball defender,” Lamb said.
Arroyo said the ability to be around high-level players and college coaches so far from home was a prime learning experience. But he’s glad to be home and is bullish about his current team.
“I like the bond we have,” Arroyo said.
In goal, the Friars will be led by the tandem of senior Brennan Schulz – another football player – and junior Jack Hayes, the junior varsity goalie a year ago.
Another thing that will benefit Fenwick is its offseason regimen, including a lot of weightlifting and wall ball, along with an eight-game winter league, where it finished fourth.
Combined, that’s a lot of experience for one team, and the Friars will need it, considering they will be in the Chicago Catholic League Blue Division, with the likes of Montini, Brother Rice, Marmion, Providence and St. Laurence.
No matter. Lamb said his team’s goal is to win conference.
“A lot of these guys, they started last year, so our team last year was pretty young,” he said. “This year I’m really excited about them playing together.”
Added assistant coach Eric Lindeman: “I think that comparatively to last year, this team doesn’t have any superstars. Last year we had some really high-level talent. I think this year, it’s just a very athletic, solid team, no kids going Division 1, just a lot of hungry bodies out there hoping to win.”