North Myrtle Beach Times Serving our Community and the Grand Strand for over 50 years
By John Smithson
Since head lacrosse coach Zach Lytle was unable to attend the second lacrosse camp for middle school age players, JV coach Ryan Swisher was preparing to make ten young campers more knowledgeable about the sport of lacrosse.
The second lacrosse camp began Thursday evening, on the heels of the elementary school age camp. Swisher was getting things ready for a night of fundamentals.
Swisher is in his second year at North Myrtle Beach High School, but he is no stranger to the game of lacrosse. “I played lacrosse in middle school, high school, club lacrosse in college at Liberty University and the University of Akron and coached in Ohio a couple of years and got back into it a couple of seasons ago,” Swisher said.
Swisher said he relocated to the area in 2019. “We got tired of saying goodbye to our beach house and moved here from Raleigh. I got into coaching here because my son, a rising sophomore, decided he wanted to be in lacrosse as a goalie, so I decided to get out here and help him be a goalie and coach a game that I love.”
I mentioned lacrosse and the skills needed to play. “a lot of training, eye and hand coordination,” he added.
Swisher is the JV coach, his second season as the head JV coach.” I was the assistant JV coach before that. The JV program has been in existence about the same time as varsity. Last year we got our first three wins in a couple of years, finished the season 3-4.”
“The game is still growing. There are a lot of kids and parents that have a lot of questions. What is this game? It looks different. Once the kids start to understand that the principles of the game are very similar to playing basketball. Looking at lacrosse in that context makes more sense. Naismith, one of the names associated with basketball, actually created lacrosse as a winter conditioning sport for his lacrosse players.”
“We are expecting about ten kids to attend this camp and we will do the same things that we did with the elementary kids, focus on the fundamentals, passing , catching, getting those ground balls, teach them how to shoot, We have a couple of JV players who will challenge them to develop their weaker hand, more so than the hand they can already throw with.”
“I tell kids that a skill in lacrosse is hard until it’s not. You keep practicing until that skill isn’t difficult anymore.”
I mentioned having watched the lacrosse program at the University of Maryland. “Zach and I were fortunate to go with coach Tom Gill to a coach’s clinic in January at Duke University and we got to see the Duke and Maryland teams square off in their first preseason scrimmage. We were right there on the sidelines, a lot of fun.”
“This year we are looking at a full roster for our team but looking to add more kids. One of the cool things about lacrosse is that a lot of kids play in the course of the game, not like a sport with just a certain number of kids on the field. So, we are shooting for at least twenty on our team, maybe more. That’s a reason for these camps, building interest in the sport and a desire to learn the game,” Swisher said.
I did go back to the camp on Saturday morning, and it was obvious watching the boys that they had already improved upon many of the skills that I witnessed that first day. The fundamentals.
Six members of the middle school lacrosse camp and their leaders gather after the camp ended last Saturday. Campers in the front row, left to right, are Brody Ennis, Nolan Stancil, Jonathan Roberts, Bennett Nichols, Jordan Yelvington and Henry Burchfield. Back row, left to right, are Andrew Brust, Coach Zach Lytle, Blake Swisher, JV coach Ryan Swisher, Mark Cabanis and Guy Ecker. Campers not pictured are Jaxton Palmer and Mimi Capello.
