STAC BOYS LACROSSE: QUALITY, QUANTITY A PLUS AT OWEGO (14 PHOTOS) (2019-03-18)

BY TIM TAYLOR
Tioga County Sports Report
OWEGO - The age-old argument about quality vs. quantity may never get solved, but at least the Owego boys lacrosse team won't have to worry about it this season. It has some of each.

The Indians, who fell a victory shy of winning a Section IV Class C championship last season, return several key players, but also has a roster numbering more than two dozen players.

That mix of quality and quantity has made for a pretty positive preseason outlook for head coach Andy Race and his crew.

"It's been pretty good," he said. "We got good, strong start this year. We were able to go down to a scrimmage tournament this past weekend down at Nyack, New York. We scrimmaged some really good teams from New Jersey, Long Island, New York City, some Section I teams, some Section IX teams, and we looked pretty good down there. We had four different scrimmages. We looked at all of our roster down there. Everybody played and played pretty well, so very happy with the way the season started off.

Filling the positions won't be a problem for Owego. There are currently 27 players out with the possibility of senior Christian Sage joining the roster once he recovers from an ankle injury suffered in the state basketball tournament.

"This is the biggest roster I've ever had as varsity coach," Race said. "It's actually really nice, being able to rotate in practice, don't have the same guys going through the drill over and over and over again. Having some more numbers is better."

In addition to the numbers, the experience level among the Indian players is high.

"We actually have a really solid core of offensive guys," Race said. "We have five our six starters back on offense. We lost one senior, Matt Maslin, who was a big piece, but we have a lot of guys stepping in, filling in that role.

"Defensively, one of our guys coming back from last year was a starter, James Bundy, but we have some of our JV guys coming up and filling in. We also have Nick Wasyln back, who was a long-stick middIe for us last year. He's only a sophomore. We've got a lot of returners coming back. New goalie. He's also a young kid, sophomore, who's shown a lot of good things this preseason."

With many of the players coming up through the ranks through the youth program, most of the players should have a good feel for the system being run at Owego, and have a good feel for each other's style of play.

"We should have a really talented core coming back. These guys right now that are up here, the seniors, are some of the first kids that I ever coached in pee wee. They've kind of been in our system all the way up through. I think that is really going to pay off for us. You can see it when they play. They work together so well."

Owego will get plenty of challenges along the way to help them prepare for a potential postseason run. Class A Ithaca and Horseheads, Class B Vestal, Class C champ Johnson City and Whitney Point, an up-and-coming Class D program, will test the Indians' skill set. Horseheads, Vestal and JC are defending Section IV champs. The Wildcats, Owego's opening game foe, graduated just six players off a 25-man roster.

"It's going to be tough for us," Race said. "It will be a tough season."

Owego and JC square off Tuesday in Johnson City at 5 p.m.

PHOTOS BY TIM TAYLOR.