Harford men’s lacrosse won its third consecutive junior college national championship last spring, finishing the season 14-0 with a plus-178 goal differential.
The Fighting Owls have gone 39-1 in the past three seasons and 59-4 since emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic. Their quest for a fourth consecutive national title begins against Fork Union Military Academy on Feb. 28 in Bel Air.
Players can only compete at the junior college level for two years before moving on, so how has Harford built such a powerhouse?
Culture and continuity
Following Harford’s 20-10 win against Nassau Community College to win the NJCAA Men’s Lacrosse National Tournament in May, Fighting Owls players pointed to the culture established by head coach Aaron Verardi as the key reason for the program’s continued success despite high roster turnover every offseason. For example, four of Harford’s top five point-scorers from a year ago have moved on.
Ahead of this season, sophomore captain and faceoff specialist Colin Inman explained that brotherhood and accountability are key tenants of the program.
“This team, program and coaching staff is really big on holding everyone accountable, not just in lacrosse but off the field — academics, your diet, hydration, your day-to-day habits,” Inman said. “… I’d say there’s a lot of accountability within this program and guys just want everybody to be successful. In this game, you need all 60 guys to be healthy and ready to go to make it to the end of the tournament at the end of the year.”
The 2026 season marks Verardi’s 12th as the head coach at Harford and 14th with the program. It also marks defensive coordinator Craig Campbell’s seventh with the program and offensive assistant Carson Kalama’s fourth. Verardi says his staff has an idea of what the team should look like but is also flexible enough to change on the fly.
“I think they’re pretty open to trying new things year to year, and I think you’ve got to do that when you have so many new faces, but at the same time there are certain things we want to do on the field,” Verardi said. “We always want to be a team that we feel like tries to play aggressively and push the pace and really try to play to our speed the entire game. That’s always our attitude. We also don’t want to beat ourselves. We want to be disciplined, we want to be fundamentally sound and just do all the things that we know help us win.”
Fast-paced play
An up-tempo style of play is often associated with basketball and football, but it’s a very real weapon in lacrosse as well. Harford scored 295 goals and threw a whopping 713 shots toward the goal in 14 games in 2025, marks that ranked second and first on the junior college circuit, respectively.
The Fighting Owls’ strategy is pretty simple: No. 1, build a deep roster in the offseason, and No. 2, giddyup-and-go during the season. The fruits of their labor were evident in the second half of the championship game against Nassau in steamy weather last May, when they outscored the Lions, 10-4, one day after the semifinals.
“We feel confident that they can go out there and play as hard as they can and push the pace and not have to worry about losing anybody after that,” Verardi said. “We have three midfield lines most of the year. We run a lot of defensive midfielders and poles and can even rotate attackmen. You can hang with us for maybe a half, but if you don’t have the same level of depth and you’re not conditioned to playing the way that we play, then eventually something’s got to give.”
Sophomore captain and attackman Eric Hennessey missed the 2025 season with a collarbone issue, but he’s excited to finally compete for the go-go-go Fighting Owls.
“I think we lost a lot of production, but I also think that last year our production would have been a lot higher with me on the field as well,” Hennessey said. “I think regardless [if I’m] on the field or off the field, our production’s going to be high. I think we have [a lot of] talent and high numbers. We’re ready to run just about anyone off the field.”
International influence
Prior to last season, Verardi had experienced success recruiting players from Canada. But ahead of the 2025 season, he branched out to England, bringing in defenseman Dan Goodwin, midfielder Hugo Peel and attackmen Will Goodwin and George Shonfeld from the Manchester area.
All four are back at Harford for a second season.
“I think it’s really just a neat experience for them obviously to be here,” Verardi said, “but also for our other players who get an opportunity to meet people from all over the world and learn about their cultures and things that they find valuable and also a sense of humor, all that stuff — just creates a different blend every year, which I think is really unique and pretty awesome.”
Shonfeld led the team in assists last year with 55. Peel scored 19 goals. Dan Goodwin picked up 10 ground balls. Dan’s older brother Will Goodwin had 20 points. When they got to campus in 2024-25, they were welcomed with open arms.
“Everyone’s just really together,” Will Goodwin said. “We got over here, and obviously like everyone who’s new, we don’t really know anyone. We didn’t have a car last year, either. Obviously we don’t live on campus. We thought that was going to be an obstacle, but it really wasn’t. Everyone would offer you rides. Everyone wants to help each other. Nobody’s going to leave someone behind.”
They immediately understood what the program was all about, too.
“From the culture standpoint, as soon as I got here it was always family-oriented,” Shonfeld said. “If I make a mistake, this is going to affect this guy [and] this guy. It all has a ripple effect, so just making sure everyone’s on the same page.”
And now they love being part of the top dog in junior college lacrosse.
“I kind of like it, to be honest,” Peel said. “I get 100 percent from each opposition. So it’s like, let’s see what you’ve got. I quite enjoy it.”
Keeping it rolling in recruiting
Verardi said a lot of potential recruits reach out to his him and his staff these days. The staff can be a “little bit more picky now than we were maybe 5, 10 years ago,” and they try to target players who will be able to grow into leadership roles as sophomores.
Last year’s sophomore leaders have moved on. Liam Forsyth (67 goals in 2025) and Kohl Wesner (49) are now at Division II Lewis University, while Kennedy Opie (33) is at Division III Babson College. This year’s sophomores will try to help Harford win another title, set the table for the next group and take the next step in their lacrosse careers.
“We really do, I think, have the right group here,” Verardi said. “I think a lot of that has to do with our recruiting — not only the talent but the character, sort of the motivation of what brings guys here has changed a lot in the last 10 years. We pretty much know everybody’s coming here for a purpose of trying to develop, trying to make themselves better and improve and ultimately be able to move on to that next level, which I think makes everybody that much more committed to the process of things.”
Photo Credit: Sam Beall/Harford Athletics
Issue 297: February / March 2026
Originally published Feb. 18, 2026