To describe the first month of Harford Community College men’s lacrosse’s 2024 season as dominant might be underselling it. Looking to defend the program’s first NJCAA championship, the Owls began the season with a 9-0 record and a staggering goal differential of plus-172.
This level of success hasn’t always been the norm at Harford. Ahead of the 2021 season, head coach Aaron Verardi was tasked with replacing nearly an entire roster after the NJCAA canceled spring sports seasons in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Verardi found his next star player north of the border from a small box lacrosse program in Winnipeg. In just two years, Cayden Onagi left a lasting impact on Harford men’s lacrosse — and began a Winnipeg-to-Harford pipeline.
“The way we found Cayden was through a club coach introducing me to his box lacrosse coach who basically said that there’s this guy that has excelled at every level he’s played at,” Verardi said. “But with COVID and just kind of where he is, he wasn’t really getting recruited the way he was probably capable of.”
COVID restrictions limited Verardi and Onagi to strictly phone and Zoom calls. Onagi never visited Harford and didn’t arrive until the spring semester of his freshman year in 2021, when Canada allowed its citizens to enter the United States.
When he finally got to campus, Onagi still had to make the adjustment to playing strictly field lacrosse. Most of his experience before college was in box lacrosse — the high-intensity indoor version of the sport that features just six players on the field instead of 10.
“That’s definitely a disadvantage of not having the best field lacrosse program in high school like most kids in the States have,” Onagi said. “So it was definitely a little bit of an adjustment coming to Harford and seeing all the talent there.”
It didn’t take Onagi long to settle in. He was recruited as a midfielder, but an injury to a starter allowed the 6-foot-1 Canadian to step in as an attackman as a freshman. During his two seasons at Harford, Onagi posted 104 points on 67 goals and 37 assists. He earned NJCAA All-America honors in both seasons and was named Region XX Offensive Player of the Year as a freshman in 2021.
“When I got there, I didn’t really expect a big impact,” Onagi said. “Unfortunately, one of our starting players got hurt and I got to kind of fill in that role. And I kind of embraced it and I’ve never really looked back.”
His coach was a little less surprised. Verardi knew he had found a gem within the first 10 minutes of practice.
“Not that I was surprised, but his impact went way up [after being moved to attackman],” Verardi said. “You really saw all of his skills and athleticism a lot more regularly and it really was a huge, huge jump for our team when he got moved down there.”
Onagi is now playing at Maryland, and it still bothers him that he wasn’t able to help deliver Harford’s first NJCAA championship despite all of his individual accomplishments. The Owls fell in double overtime in the title game in 2021 and lost in the semifinals in 2022.
“Personal goals are great, but looking back on it, you have a little bit of regret not winning those two national championships,” Onagi said. “It was definitely upsetting not finishing what we started there.”
After falling just short in 2021 and 2022, Harford captured its first national title in 2023 on its home field to cap an undefeated season. Looking to go back-to-back, this year’s Owls squad features four players from Winnipeg — Xander De La Ronde, Seth De La Ronde, Parker Lee and Tyrell Gray, who is redshirting this year.
Xander and Seth De La Ronde knew Onagi growing up. Onagi’s success at Harford made the decision to attend the Bel Air school a little easier for the twins.
“It was pretty easy for them to make the decision,” Onagi said. “It’s such a great program, so it didn’t really take much, and Coach Verardi did most of the heavy lifting there. I just was kind of in the background, just giving them the right information and not putting too much pressure on them.”
Midfielders Xander and Seth had appeared in six games entering play on April 13, combining for six goals and two assists. The twins hope to keep the Winnipeg-to-Harford pipeline going and be role models for younger players like Onagi was for them.
“Back in Manitoba, we already have kids texting us, asking us, ‘What do I need to do to play at Harford?'” Xander said. “And it’s just a really good source so we can help a lot of kids at home who have the same dream that we did.”
The De La Ronde twins are proud of their roots. It’s why they created their own apparel brand called Delax.
“It’s just our way of giving back to [the Manitoba community] for all the things it’s done for us over the years,” Seth said.
Players from areas like Winnipeg where the lacrosse community is small typically don’t get opportunities to play at the next level. Harford seeks to change that.
“It’s great to see that there’s this place in the States that really likes to look at kids from Manitoba,” Xander said. “Manitoba is always in the shadows.”
Verardi said Harford made a concerted effort to seek players from under-recruited areas and offer them an opportunity to play college lacrosse. Onagi’s success helped pave the way for that possibility.
“For all the things [Onagi] was looking for to come true, I think [he] really provided a lot of hope for people that are in that area that want to play college lacrosse someday to be able to have this as their go-to junior college,” Verardi said.
Photo Credits: Courtesy of Maryland Athletics and Richie Gutierrez