Boys Lax Mid-Season Recap
“Our main goal this season is to get a conference championship banner up.” said Head Coach Andy Crozier, over a phone interview April 18th. This is Crozier’s second season coaching the West Orange Boys Lax team. At that time, the boys had a 5-3 winning record and tied with Passaic Tech with a .625 record at the top of the NJILL Kirst conference. “We see all the banners of all these sports teams and there’s no lacrosse banner. And I think that’s a big drive for a lot of our student athletes…” said Crozier with high hopes for the team to win their conference this season.
As of May 10th with four scheduled games left, the boys are 8-6 leading in their conference with a .727 conference PCT.
Coach Crozier went over some highlights for the team at the time. “Jack Olsen has to be the unsung hero. We’re put in a position where we’re really looking for a goalie to step up and be that varsity starter for us…” At the time, Olsen had only played for two and a half weeks, but in several games, Olsen put up lots of great stats such as 14 saves in an 9-8 OT win against Verona and 10 saves in another tight 8-7 win over Newark Academy. “So Jack really stepping up and being that guy being unselfish and saying no, I want to do this for my team shows a lot of character.”
“I can’t not mention the highlights without mentioning Saboor and just what an amazing athlete he is, and what he brings offensively and defensively.” Senior Saboor Kariem, who is committed to the University of Illinois for football, is a force to be reckoned with, putting up 41 goals, 20 assists, and 29 ground balls in nine total games, Kariem now leading with 123 total career points.
The boys have indefinitely made a breakthrough as the season progresses. An observer noted, “…both the Boys and Girls lacrosse programs at West Orange are at the same level right now. Both teams are at a point where they have so much potential and so much talent to be able to start breaking through where they have not in the past. So it’s really good to see.”
Crozier was asked how the town of West Orange can support the boys team stating, “…simply showing up to the games and representing the youth program would be a huge step forward… The more young lacrosse players that we have in our youth program is only going to benefit our high school program and hopefully if our high school program is successful, then we’ll start seeing a lot more boys going into college and those guys … becoming coaches themselves and start spreading West Oranges’ name across the United States.”
As the season wraps up, come support the West Orange boys this Thursday, 5/18, taking on Weehawken at 4:30 p.m.
