Varsity Boys Lacrosse: Knights look to adjust on the fly this season

By Ben Spector
Winning After MidKnight

                       

For a team that has been buoyed by their stability in the past, the Middletown High School Knights Varsity Boys Lacrosse team seems to be wishing that they had some of the stability right now.

Middletown has shown an uncanny ability to replicate success over a long-term period of time in the past, but major senior losses from last year and a coaching change for the Knights have left them searching for a sense of strength as the Knights have spent more time than usual adapting to the changes that will come this season.

The biggest change in store or the Knights this year will be the man calling the shots on the bench. Former Middletown coach Todd Hawkins stepped down on June 3^rd, 2014 just as the 2013-2014 school year was about to conclude. Stepping in his place for the Black & Orange will be Ty Crompton, a former high school lacrosse head coach at Frederick High School and an assistant coach under Todd Hawkins this past year.

Some would assume that, considering Crompton was an assistant coach under Todd Hawkins, the systems that Middletown played with last year would transfer over to this year making the coaching change easier on everybody. We really won’t know that until tomorrow, as this will be the first look for a good number of people including the Winning After MidKnight team, at how Crompton will run his team offensively and defensively.

Even if Crompton does choose to employ the same tactics as his predecessor it will still be an adjustment for the Knights as if with any coaching change it will take some time for the athletes to adjust to the mannerisms, attitude, and characteristics of the new coach and how he will choose to operate the program.

Crompton isn’t new to the coaching thing as he did coach Frederick during the 2012 season while his son former Frederick and Middletown alumni and lacrosse player Ryan Crompton plied his trade in net for Frederick.

Crompton would make the transition up to Middletown when he was assigned a teaching position at Middletown High School with his family living in the Valley and his kids attending Middletown, including Ryan Crompton who after his time at Frederick played in goal for the Knights for two years.

That brings up the 2^nd point on which the Knights will be adjusting this season -- the loss of a large amount of seniors. This will force kids who had not spent much time playing last season into starting roles where they could see large amounts of playing time.

Ryan Crompton was just one of a handful of seniors who made significant contributions for the Knights last year with a couple of those Knights going on to play college lacrosse across the eastern United States.

Ryan Crompton is now a goaltender at the Lenoir-Rhyne University, while Michael Butcher is a middie at Lebanon valley College, with Nick Yancey a defensemen at Salisbury University.

But Ryan Crompton, Butcher, and Yancey weren’t the only ones who made significant contributions for the Knights last year as players like Brian Kilonsky, Frankie Meighan, and Rick Leonard all helped the Knights to win games and have large amounts of success over the course of the year.

The Knights will have lots of spots to fill this season because of all of those departures and a major factor for the Knights and how well they play this season, especially at the start of the season could be based on how well the kids who are not used to having large amounts of playing time deal with the spotlight for Middletown.

Mother Nature has been no friend of Middletown either as due to serious amounts of snow that came conspicuously close to the start of the season. That forced Middletown to hold tryouts inside the gymnasium and, creatively yet somewhat dangerous, on the main parking lot at Middletown High School.

With a change in coaching, significant losses at all positions, and a start to the season that has been anything but ideal the Knights will look to overcome a large amount of transition and adaptation as the season goes on which hasn’t been the norm for the program in recent times.