PEABODY — The two main shortcomings for the Peabody boys lacrosse team last season were inexperience and offensive struggles. The Tanners struggled to score goals last spring and finished the season at 6-12 with a handful of inexperienced freshmen and sophomores playing key roles on offense.
Now Peabody returns that entire offensive group for the 2018 season, meaning the expectations have turned up a notch for the Tanners.
“Our whole starting offense is back,” Peabody coach Tony O’Donnell, entering his seventh season as the team’s head coach, said. “Last year we had a problem scoring goals and I don’t think that’ll be the issue this year. During tryouts, so far we’ve seen a real strong class of freshmen. We might have six freshmen make the varsity team and that’s the most in Peabody team history.”
Key returners for the Tanners include senior attacker and last year’s leading scorer Stephen Ell, senior midfielder and team captain Ryan Vinagro, senior midfielder Mason Zeuli, junior attacker Connor McCarron, junior midfielder Jack Woods and sophomore attackers Colby Therrien and Nick Patturelli.
“We play a tough schedule,” O’Donnell said. “We’re one of the few Division 1 schools on the North Shore. We play tough teams. Of the teams we played last year, 13 of them made the state tournament. We were transitioning last year. We had three freshmen starting last year and we didn’t really graduate anybody on the offensive side of the ball.”
Freshmen Jack Holden and Drew Lucas have looked solid thus far in tryouts and are pushing for spots on the varsity team.
As for the goalie position, the Tanners face the challenge of replacing Jake DeStefano who graduated last spring. DeStefano emerged as one of the more feared goalies in the Northeastern Conference. He’s currently on the men’s lacrosse team at Rivier University alongside fellow Peabody product Matt Cloutman, also a goalie.
Senior Troy Cappos and junior Austin Leggett are currently competing for the open goalie position and both have looked good thus far. Leggett served as DeStefano’s backup last season.
“Austin started halfway through his freshman year when Jake went down with an injury,” O’Donnell said. “He does have some experience, he was Jake’s backup last season. They’re both competing heavily in tryouts and they both look good.”
The main improvement the Tanners aim to make this spring is control of possession. Peabody, with inexperience on offense, often fell into a flurry of mistakes on the offensive end that led to turnovers and scoring chances for opposing teams. O’Donnell hopes that returning an experienced group on offense will help address that.
“Possession, ball control and shot execution are some of the areas we’re looking to improve on,” O’Donnell said. “We have to limit our mistakes. If you give other teams opportunities, they’re going to score eventually. We have to limit our mistakes and limit the turnovers.
“Our experience on the offensive side will be our greatest asset,” O’Donnell added. “We also have good senior leadership. These kids have a lot of varsity experience.”
Peabody’s currently in the middle of the tryout phase of its preseason. O’Donnell said he’s looking for players who can show both confidence and an ability to compete.
“We’re looking to see which guys put the work in during the offseason, conditioning and stick skill,” O’Donnell said. “Then, we’re just trying to bring back that lacrosse awareness. In tryouts I’m looking for confidence and competitiveness.”
O’Donnell believes the NEC will be competitive this season, per usual. If the Tanners can solidify their defense, O’Donnell likes Peabody’s chances against the top teams in the conference.
“I know Marblehead’s going to be really competitive this year,” O’Donnell said. “The divisions were aligned a bit differently. Swampscott moved up to our division. Beverly’s always another competitive team. I think we can definitely compete with Marblehead for the NEC title. If we can shore up that defense, I think we’ll be in good shape.”
The Tanners hope to get outside for their first live action of the preseason this Saturday when they host the Bruce Lerch Memorial Play Day at Veterans Memorial Field. The slate of scrimmages runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and includes 16 games.
“It’s been tough just because we’re inside in the gym,” O’Donnell said. “Everybody’s going through a similar challenge. It’s hard to gauge where you’re at until you’re out on the field. Hopefully Saturday will give us a good gauge.”
The money raised from Saturday’s event will go towards the Bruce Lerch Memorial Scholarship Fund. Lerch, who was a sports writer for The Boston Herald, died in 2015 after a battle with cancer. He was 42 years old at the time of his death.
The Tanners open the new season April 5 at North Reading.
