Harford Community College men’s lacrosse won 25 of 26 games and two NJCAA championships during the 2023 and 2024 seasons, but the nature of junior college athletics forces coaches to reload after each season.
This time around, Harford head coach Aaron Verardi looked across the Atlantic Ocean, bringing aboard England natives Dan and Will Goodwin, Hugo Peel and George Shonfeld, all of whom went to high school in the Stockport area just south of Manchester.
“They’re awesome. That’s a first for us. We’ve had some international student-athletes before from Canada but never overseas,” Verardi said of the English quartet. “They’ve all come in and just been outstanding members of our program. They’re really hard workers, they’re really good players, really motivated and it’s been kind of cool just seeing them immerse themselves in the culture of not only the United States but just our program and being at Harford.”
The head coach at Harford for more than a decade, Verardi said the story of how the English quartet landed at Harford shows “how small the world really is in recruiting in really all of our sports.” The four have a friend back home who runs a lacrosse team that plays some games in the United States, and one of the host families knows Verardi. That got the ball rolling.
A Harford Athletics Hall of Famer provided an assist, too. Colin Carr, a Manchester native who played lacrosse for the Fighting Owls in the early ’90s, recommended the junior college route to his fellow Englishmen.
Attackman Shonfeld was the first to commit, then the rest followed. The four arrived at Harford in August. They immediately got a feel for how the game is different in the States than in England. Midfielder Peel explained that the style of play is different, as is the actual field.
“There’s no shot clock, so it’s a lot slower,” Peel said of the game in England. “There’s a lot more mud, so people are a lot slower because you’re walking around with the mud. You’re dodging on mud. Coming here … you can play on turf. You can really run fast. We’re still trying to get used to it with the shot clock, so we have to learn to play a bit faster than usual.”
Defenseman Dan Goodwin says the four didn’t know what to expect when they decided to make the jump.
“It’s really difficult to judge what the level’s going to be like before we get over here,” Goodwin said. “There are loads of guys in England who are good enough to play in America, but the coaches don’t see them. There’s not much scouting over there. We had no idea what the level was going to be like until we got here, really.”
Attackman Will Goodwin, Dan’s older brother, remembers watching college lacrosse on ESPN and wanting to be a participant. He says it’s already clear to him why Harford has been so successful.
“We’ve only been here four, maybe five months, but I think I can speak for all of us that our ability as players and as people as well, we’ve improved so much so far in just that short amount of time,” he said. “I can’t wait to get started with the season already. We’ve got two more years of this hopefully. It’s clear we’re going to continue to improve.”
Harford will host four home regular-season games this year: Howard Community College (March 5), Fork Union Military Academy (March 8), CCBC-Essex (April 16) and Nassau Community College (April 19).
The Fighting Owls return three first-team All-Americans in sophomores Carson Crawford, Ryan Sweiderk and Kohl Wesner. Crawford picked up 35 ground balls and caused 11 turnovers in 2024, while Sweiderk picked up 48 ground balls and caused 18 turnovers. Wesner scored 58 goals and dished out 17 assists.
Bel Air became the center of the junior college lacrosse world the past two years, with Harford winning championships on its home field to cap off each season. Verardi recognizes that Harford’s success offers the Fighting Owls more opportunities in recruiting, with players seeing Harford as a chance to win for two years before moving on to Division I programs.
The English quartet is no different.
“They’re willing to come here from another country because they feel like this is a place where they can live out their dreams,” Verardi said. “Where they are in England, there is lacrosse but it’s not anywhere near the degree it is here in Maryland and in the U.S. They’re really good players who are really dedicated to it.”
Photo Credit: Luke Jackson/PressBox
Issue 291: February / March 2025
Originally published Feb. 19, 2025