MELISSA YERKOV / WIRE PHOTO
The Holy Ghost lacrosse team downed Academy of the New Church, 17–3, on April 17. The Firebirds are ranked №5 in the Regional Eastern Pennsylvania rankings under first-year head coach Ryan Tessler.
By Mike Gibson
For the Wire
Tailgating is a tradition usually associated with college football.
Holy Ghost Prep, which is minus a football team, missed out on the fun until this season when its new head coach made it a part of lacrosse game day.
“When I got hired, I wanted to do some new things to get the fans involved and one of them was tailgating,” coach Ryan Tessler said. “We played a game at Widener University and we had a nice tailgate, a nice team function, and it was well-received by the parents, the faculty, the kids, and the alumni. So we continued to do it and we usually do it for our Saturday games.”
The hotdogs and the hamburgers taste better after a win and the Firebirds have been doing a lot of that this year.
There are 214 teams in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania who play high school lacrosse and few of them play it any better than the school located in Bensalem Township.
The Firebirds are off to one of their best starts in years and, according to the website Laxpower.com, they have been ranked as high as №5 in the regional, Eastern Pennsylvania, rankings, and as low as №13.
As the Midweek Wire went to press, the season is not even halfway done, but the Firebirds won five of their first six games and statewide, of those 214 teams, were ranked №27.
Still, as with all teams, the goal every day is to get better and that’s no different with Tessler and his Firebirds.
“We’ve never won a district playoff game and that’s one thing I really want to do right away,” Tessler said. “Last year, we finished 12–6 and got knocked out of the first round of the playoffs by Penncrest. That was a very good team but we went into this season with the goal of playing a tougher, more competitive, schedule and getting ready for the playoffs.”
It also helps to have good players and Tessler inherited a few, including a defenseman, Greg Wozniak, who has signed on to play Division I lacrosse at Boston University.
“To give you an idea of the kind of player he is, he had 40 ground balls and 40 caused turnovers through his first four games,” Tessler said. “He’s playing on an elite level.”
Some other players of note include attackman Michael Major and midfielder Bennett Zaba in addition to another defenseman, senior Ryan Karch. The goalie, Greg Price, is a sophomore “playing fantastic right now,” according to Tessler.
Wozniak, though, is the glue who sticks to the opposition’s leading scorer.
“It’s a challenge [stopping the opposition’s best player],” Wozniak said. “I like that. We have a new coach who is aggressive and has us playing that style and I think that best suits us.”
The ingredients are there, if not for a deep playoff run, than the start of big things, according to Tessler.
“When I got hired in October, I saw the potential for great things,” he said. “We’ve done everything differently with the goal of getting better, from decals on the uniforms, to the new uniforms, to tailgating.”
Tessler has a blueprint upon which to start building. He played his high school lacrosse for the powerhouse Bethpage (N.Y.) program.
“Back then, when you looked at the top 20, 25 teams in the country, about 10 of them were from Long Island,” he said. “The town gets notoriety as often a location for the U.S. Open golf tournament, but the entire area is really a great area for high school lacrosse.
“When I got recruited by St. Joe’s out of high school, the big thing for me was that [basketball] run with Jameer Nelson. I met my wife there, she went to Nazareth Academy, and knew what the program was and always followed it, and when I moved down from Long Island to Pennsylvania, I got an opportunity to latch on as an assistant and that led to the opportunity to be a head coach.”
Tessler will miss Wozniak next season, who will head off to Boston University as that school starts up its Division I men’s lacrosse program.
Wozniak is aware of some of that school’s most famous media grads, such as Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly and radio icon Howard Stern, but is going there because his brothers, Nick and Robert, went there.
“I always liked the school and wanted to go there,” Wozniak said.
BU discontinued its football team in 1997, so maybe Wozniak will take the new HGP lacrosse tailgating tradition north with him.
