A Ravenwood lacrosse player battles during a match. (Photos by David Morel)

This year's Battle of the Woods takes place next week

By CAROL STUART
For Brentwood Home Page
Lacrosse is such a big club sport in Brentwood that both Brentwood and Ravenwood high schools are sending players to college varsity programs and both schools are playing at the Division I level against powerful private schools.

Both teams also have won state championships at Division II – RHS in 2005 and BHS in 2008 – which requires a school to move up to the higher classification by rule in the Tennessee Scholastic Lacrosse Association.

And Ravenwood even captured the top division in 2007 shortly after moving up, the only public school in the state to win in DI so far.

A Ravenwood player has a face-off, a restart which occurs after every score in lacrosse.

“It's considered a club sport by the state of Tennessee, but Ravenwood has done a good job of supporting the program,” said Raptors first-year head coach Eric Clapp, who began working with the JV in 2004, a year after the school began lacrosse.

“They treat us like we're another varsity program at school. They allow us to practice on school grounds and play our games either at the practice field or the stadium, which no other public school allows that. . . . The kids actually feel like they're more a part of the school.”

The Brentwood Lacrosse Club similarly is allowed to give out varsity letters and plays on average three games a year at Brentwood High – usually on the soccer field – although most games are at Crockett Park, Coach Chuck Catterton said.

And BHS will be the site of next week’s Battle of the Woods for the boys lacrosse teams, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 6. (The girls play the following week at Crockett Park at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 14).

Brentwood LAX, which has a boys developmental program starting at fourth grade and runs through 12th, grade, took its first-ever varsity victory over Ravenwood last season.

“It's just one of those games none of these kids want to lose. It's a pretty heated rivalry on the field and unfortunately sometimes off the field,” Clapp said, laughing. “They got some good kids over there; they’ve got some good coaches. It's nice for Williamson County to have couple of strong programs.”

Clapp said Brentwood’s senior-laden team is the strongest he’s seen during his tenure at RHS – and has a good chance of making a run to the state title. Brentwood is 6-1 after a two-game trip to Alabama last weekend, winning its first four games before falling just 14-10 against defending state DI champ McCallie.

“It's definitely going to add more to the game next Thursday, especially for our kids, knowing that they're going to be getting Brentwood's best team,” Clapp said.

Sport grows in number and skill of participants

Catterton, who grew up in Maryland where many kids toss around a ball with a lacrosse stick, said the initial allure for many players here is giving boys a stick and allowing contact. But the real point of the game is ball movement, and lacrosse offers a real sense of accomplishment to develop stick skills, he said. 

“I think once they get the stick skills down and the fundamentals down, there's a real sense of accomplishment in being able to play the sport,” the BHS coach said.

Catteron didn’t play lacrosse until he joined the club team at the University of Tennessee, though. And he had put his lacrosse stick away until years later when he was teaching youth at Brentwood United Methodist.

“Some of my kids in the Sunday school came and said, 'Hey, we play this sport called lacrosse. You ought to come see it.’ I went ‘OK, I'll come watch.’ So I went and watched and then made the mistake of picking up the stick from the old days there and started throwing with some of the players.

“And of course the parents were like ‘How do you know how to throw?’ And one thing led to another, so they found out I played before. I just started helping out with the JV and within a year I was the head coach.”

That was 11 years ago and since then Catterton has seen lacrosse double from 16 schools playing lacrosse in Tennessee to 32. And Brentwood’s program has grown from about 30 high school boys – many who hadn’t ever touched a lacrosse stick until they were freshmen or sophomores -- to almost 200 boys and girls playing in the Brentwood program.

About 130 boys now participate in Brentwood LAX from fourth grade up through high school, and the club just incorporated the Ladies Program for grades 7-12 this year.

“Just in terms of Brentwood alone the growth has been tremendous,” Catterton said.

RHS junior already committed to DI college 

Ravenwood has gone from about 40 players in 2003 to about 60 boys now, and new girls head coach Constance Taras graduated from the RHS program four years ago. The Lady Raptors are 5-2 so far, with returning senior Katie Ezell the leading goal scorer and returning senior Jarrett Miller leading the defense. 

"The team last year made it to the semifinals of the state playoffs," Taras said. "Our goal this year is to make it to the state championship game."

The 2007 DI boys championship team had 19 seniors who benefited by also playing together at Woodland Middle.

“They played with each other all the way through, and on average they were a very athletic and coachable class,” Clapp said.

Clapp played lacrosse at Moeller High School in Cincinnati, the only high school program then in southern Ohio and then competed in NCAA Division III college LAX at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. But he first learned about the sport on television.

“In junior high, I just happened to be flipping through the cable channels and they had televised the Moeller game on public access,” the Raptors coach said. “Right then I knew I wanted to play this sport.”

While new programs have been popping up, Clapp noticed how high the quality of competition has risen in established Tennessee programs – including players being sought by college varsity programs, not just club teams.

“You probably get five of six kids throughout the state each year that go on and play on the varsity level in college, and you get some who play on the club level,” Clapp said.

The 2007 Ravenwood team sent players to the Air Force Academy, Mars Hill and Mt. St. Mary's plus some college club programs, and two other players since have gone to Mars Hall and Bellarmine.

Senior defender Drew Hawken, a tight end-defensive lineman on the RHS football team, will play lacrosse at NCAA Division III Nazareth in New York next year. And Raptors junior midfielder Harry Taylor has already committed to NCAA Division I Bucknell for the following season.

Ravenwood tested the waters before having to move up to DI by playing several out-of-state programs. This year a young Raptors club has scheduled teams from Kentucky, Alabama and Florida -- just winning all three games in Clearwater-Tampa-Orlando during spring break to improve their record to 6-4.

The Raptors, which lost in the semifinals to McCallie last season, have only four seniors this season and carry three freshmen on the varsity squad. Hockey star Corbin Prefanis and Nick Taras are both junior attackers returning for Ravenwood.

Clapp said some football players decide to pick up lacrosse, and a lot of hockey kids like the movement on the field along with the passing and scoring.

“Some kids, to be honest with you, it's just something different,” Clapp said. “They want to be able to say they play on the lacrosse team at school.”

Clapp said it takes about a year to learn stick skills. The faceoff after each score, similar to a tip-off in basketball, is among the things new fans have to learn to adjust to – along with offsides rules and penalty calls, he said.

Brentwood trying to make DI state run 

Brentwood has a player heading to Division I next season, Colin Hart (Bellarmine), and two more to play Division III college lacrosse, Sam Wyatt (Stevenson) and Ben Manning (Cabrini). Last year the Bruins sent Peter Raffanti and Sean Orr both to DIII Birmingham Southern.

Wyatt, Manning and Hart are among returning seniors for BHS along with Patrick Gill and Carson Mayhall.  Key additions to this year’s team are Garrett Hargis and Connor Hart.

Brentwood was fifth in the state last year after going sixth in 2009 in its inaugural year in DI following the championship season.

“Prior to that, we had made the (DII) final four four years in a row, so we had been knocking on the door for a good while and we finally got the championship,” Catterton said.

Co-captains Gill, Hart and Wyatt accounted for 39 points in this year’s 4-0 start, and Hart, Michael Plisco and Mayhall had a combined total of 100 ground ball in the first four games. 

 “I am pleased that all of our players have stepped up and are contributing to this year's success,” Catterton said.  “While we have a long way to go in the season, our goal is to make the playoffs and perhaps take a shot at the state Division I title.”