Boy’s lacrosse has become more popular with each year all over New Jersey. In South Jersey, teams continue to crop up and build their programs from scratch.
One of those programs, based in Cinnaminson, started with a club team and then a JV team. Then, in 2012, the Pirates fielded the first-ever varsity boy’s lacrosse team at the school.
Head coach Craig Angelini couldn’t be happier with where the program is headed.
“I’m happy with the fact that we’ve progressed every season. We’ve made gains every season. We are nowhere near where I want to be, but we have continually climbed with improvements every season.”
Angelini also said that numbers have slowly, but steadily grown with each season.
“Now, we are going to start getting more kids from the township feeder program. So, over the next three seasons we should start seeing some pretty big gains.”
The program has played a full JV schedule and a full varsity schedule since the first year as only a JV team.
2015 marks the first year for the Burlington County Scholastic League for boy’s lacrosse. The league was created with the additions of Cinnaminson and Delran to the sport over the last couple of years. The league will include those two teams along with Holy Cross, Northern Burlington, Rancocas Valley and New Egypt.
Once the playoffs roll around, the Pirates will likely still compete in the State, Group 1 South Division.
In terms of this year’s schedule for the Pirates, Angelini looks towards R.V. and Holy Cross as their toughest in-conference opponents.
As far as out-of-conference opponents, Angelini looks towards Mainland as another tough game, who the Pirates faced this pre-season. Angelini said that they looked pretty good during their scrimmage.
The majority of the seniors on this year’s squad have been with the program since their freshman year.
“We have a good core group of guys and we’ve really had a lot of success getting guys into college programs with what we’ve done so far. That’s my biggest single achievement. It’s the fact that we’ve gotten such a high percentage of players who wanted to play in college are actually playing in college right now,” Angelini said.
The program boasts alumni playing lacrosse at Alvernia, Neumann, Arcadia and Immaculata. Seniors on this year’s team are looking to play at RPI, Georgian Court and Lycoming.
With the final days of the pre-season upon them, the program is looking forward to the 2015 regular season.
“Our strategy is to just continually address weaknesses and make improvements. We want to continually improve and elevate our game,” Angelini said.
Cinn City Sports will provide game coverage of the Pirates season opener on April 1 at home against Holy Cross. Start time is slated for 3:30.
