De George: Winds of change blow lacrosse field’s way again

NEWTOWN SQUARE >> There’s a glint in Tommy Hannum’s eye when he travels back in time Wednesday.

Near enough to 20 years on, he can recall classic tilts, overtime games, names of stars and grudge matches with ease. Hannum is no rocking-chair-type old-timer, having just run his Marple Newtown team through a brief but intensive practice session.

But there’s a wistfulness that sweeps over him.

“I really loved the EPSLA days,” Hannum said.

From players and coaches — and players who’ve become coaches, and coaches who’ve become parents — the same message reverberates. There was something special about those days in the 1990s and early 2000s, when lacrosse’s hotbed crowned an absolute champion before the sport fell under the PIAA dominion in 2008. Catholic League or Inter-Ac or Central, all teams went into the same crucible of a tournament under the banner of the Eastern Pennsylvania Scholastic Lacrosse Association and from it was forged a champion that for a year could thump its chest and say unequivocally, ‘we are the best.’

That nostalgia hasn’t faded, even as the changing tide of the PIAA marches. And while the fondness didn’t abate in the PIAA era, another massive sea change will uproot the new status quo.

“I’m an old-school guy,” Hewlings said. “I liked everybody being in a big pot together. There was no public and private, and I like that.”

Saturday’s District One quarterfinals quadruple-header at Harriton marks an end: Of the district’s single-class system, of the closest approximation of that old tournament, of the crowning of the most legitimate champion.

“That’s what I said six years ago,” Strath Haven lacrosse coach Jef Hewlings said.

In service of almighty football, next year will see the proliferation of state champions in every sport. Lacrosse isn’t immune, spawning Class AAA and AA victors in the district and state. The move solves a problem that doesn’t exist in lacrosse: District One is saturated with talent, maybe 15 of the best 20 teams in the state. Yet geographical equity bottlenecks just five teams to states, and on the quest for a PIAA title, District One teams often get some of their easiest games of the season at what should be the toughest juncture.

Instantly equilibrating talent across the state isn’t feasible and a necessary consequence of a growing sport, which has been undeniably quickened by the PIAA’s sanctioning of the sport to extend beyond the long-held southeastern enclave. The PIAA crown is obviously precious under the current system, but many coaches view the District One Tournament as the more daunting trophy to win.

That ends next year. The new classifications bifurcate the Central League. The last two PIAA champs, Penncrest and Radnor, will be in Class AA, along with Central Leaguers Strath Haven, Marple Newtown and Springfield (the reigning district champ). Larger schools in the central and western parts of the state that have achieved proficiency in the sport land in AAA, as are the resident District 12 powers.

Hewlings thought long and hard about whether his Panthers would play up, as is a program’s prerogative. The same calculus was measured at most soon-to-be-AA schools, but Hewlings said the field was sufficiently daunting that being there didn’t constitute shying away from a challenge in his estimation.

On the other side of the divide, whichever team is crowned AAA champ will know it hasn’t been tested against some of the area’s best teams.

“We play by the rules the PIAA sets,” Haverford coach Dan Greenspun, a staunch supporter of the quest for a unified state champ. “Whatever they say, we have to do the best we can do with it.”

Next season, the most pristine trophy becomes the Central League — the pure round-robin that cuts across classifications and will go a long way in determining which champion is popularly deemed most worthy. Hewlings said that remains his team’s primary goal, as it was this year when they claimed a share of their first title and each year.

So from deciding one champion (including Inter-Ac powerhouses like Haverford School and Malvern Prep) before 2008 to one PIAA champion in parallel to the Inter-Acs, there’s now a troika of titles on offer.
Good for trophy cases and coaching resumes, but it lacks the purity of a single occupant of the summit of one of the steepest mountains in all the scholastic lacrosse world.

But a little controversy, Hewlings said, at least keeps things interesting.

“That’s the game,” said Hewlings. “That’s the fodder for the online forums.”

To contact Matthew De George, email mdegeorge@delcotimes.com. Follow him on Tiwtter @sportsdoctormd.