The Harford Community College men’s lacrosse team began the 2023 season with an 8-0 mark as part of an effort to return to the National Junior College Athletic Association Final Four for a fourth consecutive season. However, if the Fighting Owls make it this time, they will play in front of their home fans.
HCC will host the NJCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship at Harford Stadium from May 13-14. This will be the first time that the school has hosted this event and only the 15th time that the championship has been held in the state of Maryland since 1970. The most recent occasion was in 2015 at CCBC Essex.
“It’s an honor to be able to hold the championship,” HCC athletic director Ed Liesch said. “We’ve hosted regional tournaments, district tournaments, but nothing of this magnitude.”
Liesch has been the full-time athletic director at HCC since August 2021 after originally joining the staff as associate athletic director in October 2019. He said that when he came into the role, his goal was to provide new opportunities for HCC’s student-athletes and athletic programs. Hosting the lacrosse championship is an example of an opportunity this school has never had.
“One of my goals was to stretch the boundaries that the college has already experienced to new opportunities,” Liesch said. “As far as the future, we’re always looking at being innovative. We’re looking at setting the standard for our region as the top JUCO or NJCAA institution for students to come to and compete.”
HCC men’s lacrosse head coach Aaron Verardi is in his eighth season in charge of the program. Though the Fighting Owls have yet to win a championship, the opportunity may present itself again, this time with Verardi’s players being able to sleep in their own beds the night before a game.
“It’s really special,” Verardi said. “For [the players] to realize we can win this thing and the fact that it’s going to be here in our hometown and probably in front of a lot of people who are supporting us, it gives them a lot of extra motivation to get there and perform really well because they just have a lot of people backing them up, and they’re all going to see them.”
Building a successful JUCO program can be a challenge, as players are typically only a part of the team for two years. Verardi has found consistent success in recent years, and he embraces the responsibility of quickly preparing young men for life on and off the field.
“We do a lot of things here where it’s like an accelerated culture-building process,” Verardi said. “We’re just doing so much together. It’s not always lacrosse, it might be community service. It might be we’re in the weight room. We are holding them accountable for their academics. And it’s something where our sophomores, I think, get to take on an even bigger leadership role here than they would at, say, a four-year school because they are like the seniors here. … So, it’s neat how those guys get to learn those skills and build that kind of confidence early on.”
One player who has had an extended stay at the program is third-year midfielder Dylan Hines. Hines was granted an extra year of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and he says the additional time has given him and some of his teammates an opportunity to grow as players and as individuals.
“Any program that has good leadership, older guys who can kind of lead by example and then teach the younger ones how to conduct themselves, it’s really conducive to winning and just building a really good culture,” Hines said. “So, it’s helped us a lot too. It’s given us more time to develop as people and as players and I think at the end of the day, when we transfer out of here and move on, we’ll be a lot better off for it.”
For Hines, who graduated from Poway High School in California, the chance to bring HCC its first championship was one of the reasons that convinced him to attend college on the opposite side of the country.
Hines praised the coaching staff that has been put together and said he was enticed by the opportunity to “help build something” at HCC. The Fighting Owls have finished with a winning record in eight of the nine full seasons since Verardi joined the staff as an assistant in 2013, excluding the canceled 2020 season.
“The program has gotten a lot better in the past 10 years,” Hines said. “They were really good before I got here, but again, they still hadn’t won that first national championship and the pitch was kind of like, ‘Hey, you can come here, you can contribute. You can develop as a player, take two years to improve yourself as a player, as a person, prepare yourself at the next level and be able to contribute to something that we’re building here, and possibly compete for the program’s first-ever national championship.’ So that was kind of huge for me.”
Winning a championship is not the only possible positive outcome for the players. Coaches from four-year institutions may come to recruit players from the competing teams, giving them an opportunity to extend their academic and athletic careers as a result. The Fighting Owls have sent many players to the next phase of their college careers at the NCAA level. Verardi, Hines and the rest of the team remain focused on their daily goals for the time being.
“We want to compete every day and compete doesn’t mean just be better than the other guy or be better than the other team,” Verardi said. “But are you really bringing your best to the table? And that’s something that we stress every day.”
Hosting a tournament like this is always costly. Facility renovations are made. Countless hours are spent marketing the event. The event does not net a huge profit for the host, if any.
However, Liesch views this as an investment not only for the college, but for Harford County.
“A lot of eyes are on us about this event,” Liesch said. “It’s bringing a lot of [attention] to the college, to the institution, to our programs. So, we’re reaching out to the visitor’s bureau, different media, different hotels and businesses. And it’s an event actually for the county as well, not just the college, because we’re looking at this bringing some money, revenues to the local businesses and just bringing more attention to our college.”
Photo Credits: Richie Gutierrez
Originally published April 19, 2023