By: Jonathan Szczepaniak | C&G Newspapers | Published July 15, 2024
ROYAL OAK/BERKLEY — Royal Oak-Berkley M1 boys lacrosse prides itself on facing the toughest competition possible early on in its season, and unfortunately it’s led to a roller coaster of emotions.
Riding the high of coming into a new season energized and primed for a strong showing, the first stretch of games have been a gauntlet the past several years for Royal Oak-Berkley, which has failed to start with an above .500 record in its first five games since 2019.
“We started off the season against some very tough teams, and we did that on purpose,” Royal Oak-Berkley coach Vernon Ratliff said. “We wanted to let the kids know, ‘Hey, here’s what we’ve got to beat.’ We just can’t go out there and play these first or second-year programs that aren’t any good and think we’re good. We wanted to face the best early and see where we were at.”
This year was no different, as Ratliff’s squad quickly stared down an 0-5 record and questions across the board on when both the defense and offense would click together.
When the defense was performing well in matchups, the offense was stagnant. When the offense put up 10 against Rochester Adams, the defense allowed 17.
In the back of their minds, all it took was one win to get everything back on track. A gritty, resilient 8-7 double overtime win against East Lansing to snap their five-game losing streak on April 13 was just what they needed.
“It was definitely tough, but East Lansing was definitely helpful,” junior Jacob Gaynier said. “It shifted momentum completely. It was a really close game and hard-fought, and we took it into overtime and won. It was a really nice goal from Frank Minnick who picked up the (ground ball) and ripped it top right. When everybody came out and rushed the field, that was definitely a change in momentum for our season.”
The win would prompt a 5-3 finish to the season and an opening regional matchup against Bloomfield Hills, who bested Royal Oak-Berkley 8-7 in overtime in the second game of the season.
Both were two completely different teams since the early April matchup, but Ratliff said there was no chance Bloomfield Hills was going to get the best of them twice, as Royal Oak-Berkley was on the winning end of an 8-7 game, setting up a matchup with Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice.
“We knew we should’ve won that first game,” Ratliff said. “We all knew it, and I think they knew it coming in. Our guys just came in and just knew they weren’t losing to them. They were even saying, ‘Bring on Brother Rice.’ They were confident going into that game knowing they were going to play Brother Rice.”
Brother Rice was, in fact, brought on in the regional semifinals as Catholic High School League lacrosse continued to haunt Royal Oak-Berkley. Royal Oak-Berkley’s last three state tournament losses have come at the hands of CHSL teams.
The 23-3 loss didn’t show the side of the game where Royal-Oak Berkley jumped out to a lead and had Brother Rice on its heels early, and Ratliff said he wanted his players to build off that going into next year.
“Our whole thing at the end of that game was we gave everything we had, we had the lead to start the game, and we had them cussing each other out the first five minutes because they didn’t know that we were going to come and play,” Ratliff said. “We made them actually play the game. We were proud of that.”
Graduating only five seniors in Bobby Ring, Jack Schultz, TJ Antonino, Drew Lash, and Nick Genette, Royal Oak-Berkley returns a healthy core next year headlined by the team MVP, freshman Ethan Couzens.
Couzens led the team in goals (38) and was second in assists (17) this year standing at 6-foot-1 and nearly 200 pounds as a freshman. He’s already a vital part of Royal Oak’s football team on the defensive line, and now he’s an anchor for the lacrosse squad.
“As a freshman, he took control,” Ratliff said. “We could hear other coaches talking to their defense about taking away No. 29.”
Alongside Couzens, junior Jack Thornton (31), sophomore Sam Scherphorn (24), who also led the team in assists with 20, and Gaynier (26) all contributed to the scoring effort.
On the defensive side, sophomore Langdon Hurst led the team with 23 caused turnovers while sophomore Camden Palmer, junior Alex Rosenthal, junior Blaze Jeffries, Ring and Antonio all aided the back line. Sophomore Theodore Gardner controlled the net.
With the bulk of its team coming back and trending in the right direction, Gaynier said he hopes to carry the strongest attribute of the team’s success into next year.
“I feel like it was in our mentality,” Gaynier said. “We were just a family. Nobody was out yelling at people on the bench or fighting each other or anything. We were just a family who helped each other out and boosted each other up. I think after that (East) Lansing game, it only went up.”