HORSHAM >> Matt Fritz is one of Wissahickon’s smallest players but has no trouble filling one of his team’s most important roles.
The faceoff man in lacrosse is one of the most unique positions in sports and one that can have a huge impact on the outcome of a game. Fritz, a 5-foot-6 senior for the Trojans, may not tower above any other players but he’s built perfectly to thrive on the faceoff X.
Tuesday, Fritz put in another dominating effort, going 14-4 in his faceoffs as Wissahickon rushed by Hatboro-Horsham 20-5.
“It’s a sport within a sport,” Fritz said. “I’m training almost every day, I take a lot of reps at it, I have specific coaches that help me with it. I come from a wrestling background and that’s something where you have to be relentless which I think has helped me out.”
Fritz gravitated to lacrosse and faceoffs in middle school but he got his start athletically as a wrestler when he was just 5 years old. That shouldn’t be surprise given his family bloodline in wrestling. Matt’s father Bernie was an All-American wrestler at Penn State while his uncle John Fritz was a national champion with the Nittany Lions and later served as the program’s head coach in the 1990s.
His background also is a key to his success, as Fritz is able to blend the individual skills needed to compete in wrestling with the team aspects of lacrosse.
Unlike many team sports where a team that just got scored on gets the ball to start the next possession, lacrosse puts it up for grabs, which is where the faceoff unit comes in. While each team gets three guys – one on the X and two on the wings – on the field, it comes down to that one-on-one battle in the middle of the field.
“There’s definitely a prototypical faceoff guy,” Fritz said. “You want a low center of gravity, quick hands and someone who is mentally strong. That’s where wrestling has really come in a lot for me.
“A lot of people aren’t as mentally strong for the position because it’s hard to go 100 percent winning every faceoff. You’re still failing and some people may let one failure get to them. You have to understand it’s not going to go the way you want it to every single faceoff and just look to the next one.”
Wissahickon senior faceoff/midfielder Matt Fritz. (Andrew Robinson/MediaNews Group)
Fritz joked his bio lists him at 5-foot-7 and not 5-foot-6 but the astounding transformation is the one he makes when wrestling season ends and he gears up for lacrosse. Fritz wrestled at 145 pounds for Wiss, where he was a league champion and district qualifier during his four-year career, but on Tuesday said he’s now about 165 pounds.
“The first thing I make sure is that I don’t try to bulk up all at once, if I did that I’d be putting on some bad weight,” Fritz said. “To be honest, in wrestling season I’m in a lot better shape but I need that extra weight for lacrosse so I’m mixing in cardio, lifting and be cautious of what I eat.”
On Tuesday, Fritz started out pretty even with Hatters faceoff man David Benjamin but the Wiss senior began to assert himself toward the end of the first quarter. The ideal scenario for a faceoff man is to get the first move right off the whistle, clamp the ball and come up with the possession.
That wasn’t the case Tuesday, so Fritz was able to adapt and use his wingers by playing the ball off the X and letting them gather up the ensuing ground balls.
“Helping the team is what I want to do,” Fritz said. “What I’ve been trying to perfect is the mental aspect of it. I feel like I have the physical aspects to it and I’ve been facing off for years but that mental aspect is huge. I would say it’s about 80 percent mental and you balance not getting too high or too low on yourself and treating each one like it’s 0-0 and you want to win the next one has helped me to try and go 1-0 every time and get the ball back for my team.”
Fritz also plays for Big 4 HHH, a top club lacrosse program that he credits for really helping him hone and refine his faceoff skills. His standout abilities put him on the college radar and in January of 2020, Fritz committed to play Division I lacrosse at Ohio State.
The senior had plenty of suitors from top programs like Syracuse and Denver and local programs like Lehigh and Lafayette among others but felt Ohio State provided the right mix of big school, quality lacrosse program and an abundance of academic options for him to pursue.
“I’m fortunate to have had many great opportunities playing for a top club lacrosse team and it allowed me to showcase my abilities and talent so I’m forever grateful for those opportunities,” the senior said. “It was flat-out just the people at Ohio State. I feel like they have the best coaching staff and even the academic advisors, it all felt like family and I’m huge into that. It’s like a brotherhood up there and they really take pride in that.”
Fritz, a Blue Bell native, is one of 10 seniors on the Trojans’ roster this spring and they’re looking to send a message after losing out on their junior season. Wiss has proven its mettle, dropping one-goal games to state powers Springfield-Delco and Conestoga but also picking up a win over another Central League force in Garnet Valley over the weekend.
Much like Fritz is a smaller guy not to be overlooked, the Trojans are hoping to put the rest of District 1 on notice once the postseason rolls around in May.
“Our ultimate goal is to win a state championship but we also can’t look at the grand scheme of things, we have to take it one opponent at a time,” Fritz said. “We’re out to show who we are every game. Every single game, we want to earn our respect.
“We’ve known what we’ve been brewing at Wissahickon but we also take pride in knowing we are the underdogs when you look at some of the Central League powers or teams like La Salle that expect to contend for state titles every year.”
Wissahickon senior Matt Fritz comes away with a faceoff win against Hatboro-Horsham during their game on Tuesday, April 27, 2021. (Andrew Robinson/MediaNews Group)
No matter where the season ends up for the Trojans, Fritz is savoring this final season with the guys he grew up playing the game of lacrosse with.
“We take it seriously, but we do like to have fun, you can’t be all serious all the time,” Fritz said. “It’s important to enjoy the moment, some of us are going to be playing in college but we always talk about how nothing really compares to high school lacrosse.
We want to take nothing for granted because after this season, we want to look back on the success as one thing but we also want to remember all the fun we had together.”
WISSAHICKON 20, HATBORO-HORSHAM 5 >> The Trojans (8-3, 5-0 SOL American) remained unbeaten in SOL play with a balanced offensive effort. As a team, Wiss went 18-9 on faceoffs and had four players score at least three goals, led by Kyle Lehman’s five-goal, one-assist afternoon.
Brody Myers had four goals and five ground balls, most as a faceoff winger, while Sam Baker and Dean Wolfe each had a hat-trick. Jackson Intrieri had a goal and four assists.
Hatboro-Horsham goalie Bredan Kirn faced a barrage of shots but stood firm with 18 saves. Alex Cirmanera had three of the Hatters’ goals.
WISSAHICKON 20, HATBORO-HORSHAM 5
WISSAHICKON 7 7 5 1 – 20
HATBORO-HORSHAM 1 0 1 3 – 5
Goals-Assists: W – Kyle Lehman 5-1, Brody Myers 4-0, Dean Wolfe 3-1, Sam Baker 3-0, EJ Schreiner 1-0, Jackson Intrieri 1-4, Ethan Glass 1-0, Andrew Slackman 1-0, Jason Michaels 1-0; HH – Alex Cirmanera 3-0, Min Lee 1-0, Sam Fink 1-0.
