LEBANON — The Stevens High lacrosse team has faced myriad challenges during the last decade. Shorthanded rosters, the lack of a consistent feeder program and most seasons, only a lone instructor.
The Cardinals are 1-71 during the last six years and haven’t won a game since 2016. They’re on their third head coach in four years and can rarely retain more than a handful of players for their entire high school careers. Friday, however, might have been the struggling program’s nadir.
It wasn’t the 13-1 score against Lebanon so much as how the NHIAA Division III opener transpired. The visiting Cardinals had only two substitutes and played eight freshmen. Stevens goaltender Logan Steadman is one of seven first-year players on the team and had practiced his position only three times, never on a field.
Four Cardinals were out with flu and another eight are academically ineligible, said first-year coach Scott Guyer. The 2010 Concord High graduate had to remind novice players to use the substitution box, and his troops never quite got the hang of proper faceoff alignment.
The referees chose not to flag Stevens for half a dozen offsides violations and, at one point, their central midfielder stood motionless atop Stevens’ crease, watching passes and inadvertently screening Steadman.
The Raiders led, 10-0, at halftime, when assistant coach Nick Wood, filling in for absent boss Rob Fett, mandated that his players shoot only after numerous passes and lengthy possessions. The fourth quarter was played at something slightly above a shuffling pace, as the Cardinals displayed exhaustion and their hosts’ resignation to the lopsided matchup.
“Don’t chase!” Guyer shouted at his defense. “Save your energy and just play your area!”
Said Wood: “We’re not the kind of team that goes out to embarrass anyone. (Stevens) deserves every ounce of respect for coming out here and playing for the love of the game. We need that type of dedication and commitment in this sport.”
Lebanon’s Patrick Mason had a hat trick. Brad Plodzik, Griffin Auch and Jon Cloud each scored twice, and Sam Lapin, Aaron Damren, Simon Amaro and C.J. Childs all struck once. Ian Fitzpatrick scored Stevens’ goal, three minutes into the second half.
“Today wasn’t a good showing,” said Guyer, who teaches special education in Claremont and coached the city’s middle school team last year. “I have kids who are frustrated but … I can see us winning a game this season, I really can.”
That’s happened only three times during the past eight seasons, during which the Cardinals have lost 96 times. Guyer said playing a junior-varsity schedule without a varsity squad isn’t allowed by the NHIAA. Lebanon athletic director Mike Stone noted that, although the schools combine for boys and girls hockey, doing so in lacrosse would require moving to a higher division because enrollment rules vary by sport.
So should Stevens eliminate lacrosse?
“You have to think about it from a different angle,” Guyer said. “Our players don’t care as much about losing as they do about showing what they can do. They just want to be seen and heard.”
Among them is Lauren Noll. The freshman midfielder had only previously played street hockey, said her mother, Kristin Kenniston, who was watching her first lacrosse game on Friday. An employee in the Lebanon city clerk’s office, Kenniston said she’s a little worried how her 15-year-old daughter’s slight frame will hold up but doesn’t want to discourage her from trying new activities.
“She’s a tough little thing who really wants to play football, and this is her way of showing us she can handle it,” Kenniston said. “She’s disappointed there aren’t more kids on the team, but she’s a very optimistic person and she says they’re just going to give their best every time.”
Attracting young players hasn’t been one of Stevens’ bigger problems. Keeping them, however, is a different story. Last year’s team included 10 sophomores, but only two are on the current roster. A classmate, Alex Simoneau, is out for the season while recovering from an extensive shoulder injury suffered in football.
“These kids get told all the time that they come from a terrible town, when it’s not,” Guyer said. “I’m trying to show them if you have pride and go all out, you’re going to get improvement, even if it doesn’t show on the scoreboard right away.”
Notes: Noll was one of three female Cardinals, joining Lily Hogan and Teah Vasquez. … Lebanon has 28 players in its program but was missing four or five whose families had already left for next week’s school vacation or to tour colleges and universities. … Hulking Stevens defenseman Isaiah Forrest landed several bone-rattling hits on the Raiders. … Lebanon is scheduled to visit Milford on Monday. Stevens is next slated to host Plymouth. Both teams are hoping to play three contests next week. … The Cardinals have endured back-to-back winless seasons and five such campaigns in the last seven years. … Logan Bateman, a Regis (Mass.) College sophomore and Stevens graduate, is a sophomore defender and long-stick midfielder for the Pride (3-5) and is majoring in biomedical engineering. He’s started all 23 games in his college career and has led the team in ground balls each of the last two seasons.
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com.