The team’s voice couldn’t speak.
Earlier this season, University of Denver lacrosse captain Andrew Lay took a ball to the face that broke his jaw. He underwent surgery and his mouth was wired shut.
“When it happened, we were all really down, and you could tell during that whole week at practice,” teammate Eric Law said. “We were all moping around.”
So Lay spoke to the team the only way he could, posting a handwritten letter in the locker room, motivating his team to remain a team. The Pioneers started playing great, and even though Lay would lose his starting job, he returned to action and remains a vital vocal leader for DU, which plays in its first NCAA Final Four this weekend in Baltimore.
“(Lay) brings so much leadership and so much confidence to our team,” Law said of the senior. “And to have him from Denver, and to be one of our captains as we make this run, it’s just great for us and the state of Colorado.”
Lay (Denver East), Law (Arapahoe) and Kyle Hercher (Heritage) are three of 10 Colorado prep products on the DU roster. Sure, it would have been a big accomplishment if DU made the Final Four with a team full of guys from Connecticut. But with the strong contingent of local talent, it makes this a watershed moment in collegiate lacrosse history. DU is the first team west of the Mississippi to crack the Final Four.
“We want our success to billow out to others — let it grow in Denver, in Colorado, in the far West,” said DU coach Bill Tierney, who won six national titles at Princeton. “If we can someday look back at our Final Four as the springboard for other schools to start having lacrosse teams, then we’ve done our job as well.”
Before he became a Pioneer, Tierney knew there were nuggets out in Colorado. In the late 1980s, his Princeton team featured a player plucked out of Denver named Chris McHugh. In the following decades, Tierney often had at least one Colorado kid on his roster.
But when Tierney showed up in town two years ago, “what I was surprised about was the massive number of young people playing. There’s the Denver City LAX program that they have. We’ve started our own club program here, but there are other club programs that have done very well, as have the high schools.
And now the local college program has taken off. Just two years ago, though, DU was trying to fill out its roster. Before Tierney arrived, many players, including Lay, considered transferring. But when Dillon Roy, a Denver native and local lacrosse star, decided to return to DU, his move motivated others to stay. And so, with Roy graduating a year ago, it’s funny that one of the most important players for this year’s team isn’t even on the team.
Heading into this season, the DU players thought they’d be good. But national-championship good?
“I don’t think many people gave us a chance to go this far,” said Law, a sophomore. “It shows how far the team has come. It’s always been known as an East Coast sport. But not only to have Denver in the Final Four, but to have a lot of players on our team not from general hotbeds, it goes to show that the game is growing so much out West. We don’t want this to be a one-and-done thing. We want this to be that we’re one of the next top teams for years to come. We’re hoping this is one of the steppingstones.”
Benjamin Hochman: 303-954-1294 or bhochman@denverpost.com
DU lacrosse
DU’s top men’s lacrosse scorers this year — junior Mark Matthews (45 goals) and senior Todd Baxter (31) — are from out of state. But the Pioneers have 10 players from Front Range high schools:
Name Class High school
Drew Babb Fr. Arapahoe
Chace Calkin So. Mullen
Kyle Hercher So. Heritage
Matt Kramer Fr. Heritage
Eric Law So. Arapahoe
Andrew Lay Sr. Denver East
Henry Miketa Jr. Fort Collins
Troy Orzech Jr. Regis Jesuit
Steven Wylie Jr. Regis Jesuit
Taylor Young So. Heritage
