ROUGHRIDERS LIVE UP TO THE HYPE
(July 20, 2009)
by Sarah Eigner
The RoughRiders Elite team arrived at the Dick’s Sporting Goods Atlantic Cup with hype after being named as one of Inside Lacrosse’s top summer club programs of 2009. The team certainly lived up to its reputation, finishing the tournament with a perfect 6-0 record, including a 19-5 victory over Burnaby Mountain Selects in the championship game of the boys’ high school elite division.
With an unblemished mark of their own heading into the championship game, the Burnaby Mountain players could not ignore the reputation of the RoughRiders.
“We saw that they were an honorable mention in Inside Lacrosse and we heard about some of their players going to top schools like Johns Hopkins,” said Burnaby Mountain midfielder James Delaney.
With other teams aware of their accolades, do the RoughRiders feel added pressure to maintain their lofty reputation?
“We don’t feel pressure from the outside; we feel pressure from ourselves,” said RoughRiders’ assistant coach Booker Corrigan. “We try and hold ourselves to a certain standard, and the way we do that is evident in the way we play and the way we carry ourselves.”
Burnaby Mountain head coach Brent Hoskins reminded his team before the game to remain confident despite their opponent’s reputation.
“We put the focus on doing the things that we needed to do in order to be successful and execute our systems,” said Hoskins. “The [RoughRiders] were able to exploit some of our weaknesses and they capitalized early on us. Then they went on a bit of a run and it turned into an uphill battle.”
Burnaby Mountain ultimately could not overcome the nine RoughRiders' goal-scorers who combined for 19 tallies.
“We are trying to breed a very unselfish and up-tempo style of play,” explained Corrigan. “One of the things we tell the guys is that we are going to make mistakes but what is important is who can rise above them. They are going to play a lot better on the back-end if they know they can make a mistake, then make up for it.”
After losing the title game to the RoughRiders, Hoskins had nothing but praise for the Maryland-based champions. “Up and down their roster, they are very talented. There wasn’t a single player that wasn’t capable of playing at the top level. They had six offensive threats on the field at all times.”
Burnaby Mountain may have left Maryland without a championship title; however, coach Hoskins believes the experience his players received was extremely valuable. “It gave our players a good chance to see where they are. Hopefully they can use that as a motivator to keep working on their games for future tournaments.”
As for the RoughRiders, the team has added the Dick’s Sporting Goods Atlantic Cup boys’ high school elite division title to a long list of successes. And still, Corrigan will continue to push his team to improve.
“There is always stuff to work on,” said Corrigan. “One of the things I love is that our players are very coachable. They take direction well and are amazingly unselfish. That goes from the way our defensemen play, to the way we move the ball in transition, to how well our attackmen share the ball.”
By making the title game, both teams earned bids to compete for the national championship at the Dick’s Sporting Goods Tournament of Champions this winter.
Will RoughRiders Elite be able to prove that they belong at the top of the rankings?
“We see the [Dick’s Sporting Goods] Tournament of Champions as the opportunity to prove it,” said RoughRiders’ head coach Lee Corrigan. “We want to go out there and prove it on the field.”
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