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Thursday, May 1, 2008
Power Up
Greater Louisville, KY
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Potential plus skill and enthusiasm yield a winning season for Ballard Lacrosse
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By mid-April, Ballard already had more than doubled its 2007 win total and had surpassed its 2007 Division 1 win total.
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After Ballard’s 12-2 loss to Lexington Catholic in the 2006 Kentucky Lacrosse Association High School Boys’ Division 1 semifinals, Bruins head coach Jay Johnson privately offered a few hopeful words to sophomores Paul Fischer and David Spielberg.
“He told us that he’d take us to the state championship game when we were seniors,” Fischer recalls.
Within a year, however, Johnson had left the team without coaching another game, and the Bruins finished in unfamiliar territory for a Ballard athletic team – eighth place – with just two wins in nine Division 1 contests under two of Johnson’s former assistants.
“Last year was really rough,” Fischer says.
But the Bruins “have gotten over it,” as Spielberg puts it, because that state championship game is a possibility for them again.
By mid-April, Ballard already had more than doubled its 2007 win total and had surpassed its 2007 Division 1 win total. In two of those victories, the Bruins outscored Manual and Tates Creek 37-9 – a year after losing to both teams.
“It feels great to know that we’re legitimate contenders,” Spielberg says.
Such potential was there, just waiting to be tapped, as one prominent Division 1 coach noted in the preseason. Ballard returned most of its players, including Spielberg, who was an All-State midfielder and led the team in scoring with 24 goals and six assists last season; Fischer, who was the team’s second-leading scorer with 19 goals and eight assists; and All-State goalie Jeremy Stein. They are just three of the team’s 14 seniors.
Well, new head coach Ryan Wallace and his assistant, Tyler Montgomery, have tapped much – if not all – of that potential since coming on board.
Wallace, a 26-year-old Kansas City native and former Kansas University club player, has validated the trust that Ballard placed in a young man who had little coaching experience other than a stint as the national development officer for The Welch Lacrosse Association (yes, in Wales).
“He definitely has turned the program around,” says Spielberg’s father, Jeff, who chaired the search committee that found Wallace last summer. “We have a young and enthusiastic coaching staff, and the kids have really responded to them.”
Wallace also was hired as a full-time substitute teacher (but recently became a full-time Spanish teacher), and he quickly took advantage of his daily presence at the school. Practices started in mid-September, within days of his first team meeting.
He and Montgomery, a University of Louisville student who was an All-State player in New Jersey, emphasized fundamental skills from the beginning, which junior midfielder Hunter Smith says was important.
“Coming into the season, the younger guys knew how to catch and pass already,” Smith says. “Last year, no one even taught you how to do that or how to pick up a ground ball. We went from an athletic team last year to an athletic and skilled team this year.”
Wallace singles out senior defender Ty Unthank and junior midfielder Nick Cummings as players who have become markedly more skilled.
But he argues that discipline, another early focal point, has made the most difference in Ballard’s turnaround.
“The players have really bought into that,” Wallace says.
Larger home field crowds have accompanied Ballard’s success this season, which likely is not a coincidence. The latter does not completely explain the former, however.
Wallace and the Bruins have been promoting the team within the school’s walls, as well. Several players are involved in Ballard’s newscast – including senior defender Clay Simpson, who is an anchor – and sophomore defender John Haselden designed the team posters that hang inside the school.
“Ballard is known for its huge fan base, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job getting them out,” says senior attacker Austin Seiz.
Nathan Chambers, now a Chicago resident, is the man behind BeyondTheDerby.com, a web site devoted to Louisville area field hockey, lacrosse and running.
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