Academy of The New Church 2023 Friends School League Lacrosse Champions

BY MARC NARDUCCI

When it comes to streaks, the Academy of New Church boys’ lacrosse program has taken its latest one to the extreme.

For the Lions, it’s one decade down, the next one to go.

When Academy of New Church beat visiting Westtown, 14-5 to win the Friends League championship, it not only made it nine consecutive Friends League titles, but extended its unbeaten streak in all Friends League games to those same nine seasons.  

The streak began in 2014 and has continued, with the exception of 2020 when there was no season due to COVID.

The 2014 season also marked the arrival of Rob Forster as head coach and his brother Jack Forster as assistant.

The fact that the Forsters arrived when the streak started is also no coincidence.

The title win improved ANC’s record to 14-5. The Lions will be competing in the National Prep Championship beginning May 19 in Bel Air, Maryland. (Westtown is also competing in this tournament).

ANC plays a treacherous non-league schedule, that includes an 11-8 loss to Radnor, which is No. 13 nationally in this week’s NLFrankings.com rankings.

The Lions added a major twist to this year’s title, winning with a goalie who before this month, had played the position exactly once – nearly one decade earlier.

ANC’s regular goalie was unavailable for the championship and the team had no backup among its 23 man-roster.

So, Forster held tryouts, where prospective goalies were peppered with tennis balls and then had to save the real lacrosse balls, the ones that smart when they don’t hit the padding.

Out of the tryout emerged sophomore Braden Corwell, whose previous experience was playing one time in a rec league game when the regular goalie didn’t show up.

Corwell was all of eight or nine years old at the time, he recalls.

So, returning to the position in high school brought a natural reaction from Corwell.

“I was a little nervous,” he said,

 A little?
At least he got one game to play before the championship. That was a 7-6 non-league loss to La Salle. Not the easiest first assignment.

“I had no pressure, because if I didn’t save a single ball, I wasn’t supposed to,” Corwell said.

What happened was he did make his share of big plays in the championship game.

“He stepped in and shocked us,” said ANC senior defensive midfielder Nate Bradley, a Drexel commit.

He also might have shocked himself.

“A couple of kids said they thought I did pretty well,” Corwell said. “It was fun, although getting hit with the ball definitely hurts.”

Yet losing hurts more, not that his teammates would know the feeling in Friends League action.

“We have a saying ‘We over me’ and he put the team in front of himself,” said ANC defensive midfielder Terry Farrell, a Wagner commit, who scored a goal in the title game.

Jack Forster doesn’t talk to his team about the streaks, both the regular season and championship variety. Yet He doesn’t want to put more pressure on his players.

The players, however, still know the math. And they feel the pressure but are not suffocated by it.

“It has pretty much started to be a tradition and every senior class knows they have to deliver another plaque,” Farrell said.

What made this year even more impressive is that ANC beat a quality Westtown team. This was Westtown’s third straight year in the championship.

The Moose scared the daylights out of ANC in last year’s championship, losing just 13-11.

So even though ANC beat Westtown, 17-9, during this year’s regular season, there was no complacency entering the championship.

ANC understood they were facing a formidable opponent.

Westtown features nine Division I commits, including senior Chrishawn Hunter, who scored a goal in the title game and is headed to Syracuse.

This is the second season for Desi Gonzalez as head coach at Westtown and he has a good blueprint to follow in attempting to get his team over that championship hump.

“ANC has 10 years on us, and we are trying to catch them,” he said.

Gonzalez was realistic enough to realize that it was simply ANC’s day during championship win No. 9 in a row.

“We have made a bunch of strides and are trying to close the gap on ANC, but they really showed up to play in the championship game,” he said.

While ANC has undeniable talent, the dedication is on the same level. For a few days a week during the fall and winter, the team had 6 a.m. workouts. The winter ones were conducted outside.

Brrrrr…

“I would often get testy when my alarm clock would ring, but the early morning workouts certainly paid off,” Corwell said.

He added another intangible that can’t be measured on any stat sheet.

“We are all so close and would do anything for each other,” he said.

While the players win for each other and their coaches, there is another group who also provide plenty of motivation – the alumni.

Nobody wants to be the class that stops the streak. That is real pressure, and it can be tough to deal with, but beating ANC, at least for the past decade, has proven to be the real difficult task.

“The former players take pride in the streak, watching it continue to grow and our players play for them as well,” Forster said.

And the current ones take pride in keeping things going, and going and going…