Beacon lax ready to bop into tough lacrosse schedule
The Beacon Middle School lacrosse team is in its third year of the program, all under the direction of head coach Joey Vavala.
Vavala, a math teacher and a former head boys’ coach at Milford, has a batch of players who started with him when they were in sixth grade.
“I played for Cape teams that won back-to-back state championships in 2001 and 2002,” Vavala said.
Corey Mahoney, an assistant coach, played on the 1998 undefeated state championship team. Nick Luzak and Mark Tappan are volunteer coaches.
Beacon is facing a tough schedule that will get their attention, including games against St. Edmond’s Academy, Upland Country Day from Pennsylvania, two games with Easton, two with Worcester Prep, and games with Postlethwait and Sts. Peter and Paul.
“We purposely chose a hard schedule in an attempt to do what the Cape team does by scheduling tough out-of-state opponents,” Vavala said. “The goal for the program is to help Cape win state championships, and I believe having our guys learn how to compete against quality opponents and win hard-fought games is one way to reach that goal.”
Vavala doesn’t like dropping names of players when they are so young, but he will comment by position.
“Our team will be very strong defensively this year,” he said. “We return a three-year starter in goal and three long poles who either started or played major minutes last year. Offensively, we return our two leading scorers from last season. We have a lot of quality depth at attack and midfield, but we need a few guys to take a step forward this season and separate themselves from the pack.”
Beacon practices on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and does not interfere or overlap with Atlantic Lacrosse.
“Guys who play for Atlantic and Beacon play a lot of lacrosse, but I believe it will help prepare them for high school, where they will be expected to play/practice six days a week,” Vavala said. “It is also similar to most of the other middle school sports at Beacon, which practice five or six times a week, so the workload isn’t too overbearing.”
Vavala talked about the mission and philosophy of the Beacon program: “Middle school laxers need to continue developing and learning the game. Defensive fundamentals, offensive movement, stick skills, shooting, confidence and overall lacrosse IQ are focuses for our program.”
Beacon will open its season Friday, March 23, at St. Edmond’s in Wilmington. St. Edmond’s costs $16,500/year to attend, and there are 240 students in grades 1 through 8. Students come from New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. And they can play the game of lacrosse.
