South Hagerstown boys lacrosse team celebrates a victory more than two years in the making

When Tim Rockwood became the South Hagerstown boys lacrosse head coach prior to the 2022 season — the Rebels' first after a two-year hiatus caused by the COVID shutdown — he took charge of a program that had last experienced victory on May 9, 2017, in the regular-season finale against Frederick.

"The first meeting I ever held, we had five kids at," Rockwood recalled.

It was a low point for a program that appeared on the verge of extinction. But Rockwood and the few players he had at that time refused to let it die.

"It was getting everyone you know out, and eventually we got the guys out to grow the program to now we have 40 guys playing," said junior Nick Bryan, who was part of the varsity as a freshman in 2022. "It was bring a friend, and that friend bring a friend."

"We (wound up with) 10 or 12 kids for the (2022) season," Rockwood said. "Last year our numbers doubled, and this year they've pretty much doubled again."

A victory — any victory — remained elusive. The Rebels went 0-12 in 2022, getting outscored 236-24. South finished 0-15 last year, getting outscored 277-34. The Rebels dropped their first two games of this season by a combined 31-5 score.

Then, last Saturday, a breakthrough. Trailing Chapelgate Christian 4-2 on the road after the first quarter, South shut out the Yellow Jackets over the final three quarters and rallied for a 7-4 triumph.

Cue the celebration.

"Obviously, it was a unique experience here," said senior goalie Joseph Fox, a three-year starter who made 15 saves in the win. "It was really exciting to be around guys who were so ecstatic to win. It was just fantastic. There were smiles all around."

"Everyone wanted it," said Bryan, who had two goals and an assist Saturday. "Everyone was running as hard as they could, playing as hard as they could, playing our brand of lacrosse."

"I'm a coach who's not a big fan of the phrase, 'Act like you've been there before,'" said Rockwood. "Personally, I want nothing negative toward another group ever, and I draw a hard line on kids, coaches and all of us with that. But when you win or something good happens, celebrate it for all you're able to celebrate it for. I think we did that on Saturday. The kids were tossing their gear off and storming the field like we just won a national championship, and in my opinion, every win should be that way, not just the first one."

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The long, winding road to victory

The first step to turning around the Rebels was getting more kids out to play.

"My sophomore year, we didn't have a lot of kids and it was just hard to win a game with only 10 guys," Fox said.

"My freshman year, I didn't even know (lacrosse) existed as a sport here," said junior Thurman Harold, who scored three goals in Saturday's victory. "My friend here," he added, pointing to Bryan, "invited me to join the team and it's been amazing ever since. I've got to make a lot of new friends."

With a full varsity and JV team this year, that first step has been achieved.

The second step — teaching the fundamentals to a group of players who, for the most part, never played lacrosse before getting to South — is ongoing.

"We're still a really young team for a varsity program," Rockwood said. "We have three or four seniors who are playing, and only one played lacrosse before getting to South. We only have four kids who have played any kind of youth lacrosse. To go out and compete with some of these programs has been tough, and now we're starting to see a little bit of the reward for how hard we've worked."

"It's been a lot of hard work for all of us to get to this point," said Harold. "I feel like we can definitely keep getting better and learning. We showed on Saturday that we can go out there and play."

"You can tell we've developed a lot as a program, and I'm really excited to see just how much some of these kids have developed, and we can see we're getting better every single day," Fox said.

"We're doing a lot of good things. We're having a lot of fun at practice. It's a good group of guys," Rockwood said. "I was lucky to get three coaches in the building last year, two of which I still have this year (Dylan Brown and Dylan Shatzer), which is more than any other sport at South. We also have an alum from the program helping out in Patrick Bryan."

Saturday's victory was the best reward yet.

"We came out a little flat to start and got down, and then we really started picking it up and playing the way we know we can play," Fox said. "There have been a lot of times in the past few years where we've come out flat against teams that we should be more competitive with, and we just don't finish against those teams. On Saturday, we came out a little flat, but we started picking it up and we were able to keep it rolling. We didn't allow any goals in the last three quarters and picked it up a good bit on offense. It was really exciting to see us actually finish out a game."

"Saturday was phenomenal," Rockwood said. "The feeling you get from it, and to see the work of kids for 2 1/2 years pay off, because it's not just about that day, it's from that meeting with five kids until the final whistle that day for me."

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No more moral victories

South had an opportunity to make it a winning streak Monday at home against Sandy Spring Friends School. The Rebels took a 5-2 lead in the second quarter, but the Wildebeests scored six straight goals to take an 8-5 lead into the final quarter and prevailed, 9-7.

Not that long ago, a 9-7 loss would have been cause for optimism. On Monday, it simply stung as a winnable game that got away.

"We're a better program than we (showed) tonight," Rockwood said. "I'm glad that the kids and the other coaches see it that way, too. A 9-7 (loss) with 11 guys two years ago would have had me as happy as can be, but we are capable of a lot more than we put on the field tonight.

"We talked to the kids that every day, the goals need to be to compete and to learn. ... The Rebel Way is to just be gritty and compete and learn, so hopefully that continues to help us go in the right direction."

Up next is city rival North Hagerstown at Callas Stadium on Thursday.

"We can use (Monday's loss) as fuel," Harold said. "We're going to go in against North and try our best, hopefully come out with the W."

"They are a program with a significant amount more experience than us, and that helps in their favor a lot. They have some really good players over there. The coaching staff, they are passionate guys wanting to help their kids do well," Rockwood said. "We closed that gap last year (in a 12-6 loss) by playing really tough, hard-nosed, gritty lacrosse. Now we just need to go out and put 48 minutes together just like any other game."

Note: After making 26 saves Monday, Fox is at 650 saves for his Rebels career and is 42 shy of the state record of 692, set by South's Joey Garland in 2017. Fox set the single-season state record of 346 saves last year.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: South Hagerstown ready for more lacrosse wins after ending 7-year skid