This article takes an in-depth look at where the players at Redwoods Lacrosse Club come from.
Do you know which players attended the same high school? Which players were NCAA teammates, and which were fierce conference rivals?
Read on…
Redwoods And The Tour-Based Model
The Premier Lacrosse League has a tour-based model with all the clubs coming together at weekends to the same venue.
This means that the Redwoods Lacrosse Club doesn’t have a permanent base to call its home.
But you’d be wrong to think that the coaches don’t care where their players come from. The fastest way to establish a team culture in a young club is to have a core set of players who already know each other.
When the PLL was first set up, they had this to say about forming the teams:
…these teams have been built around players who have played in colleges together or played rivalries against each other…
Divya Goel, May 2019
Many players have come and gone since the inaugural season (we have all the Redwoods rosters). However, there is still a pattern at Redwoods of higher representation from one college and conference.
Which Colleges Are Redwoods Players From?
The above map shows the nine states in the United States with alumni at Redwoods. Just scan across for the logo!
The current team has players from thirteen NCAA Division 1 colleges across these states.
However, one college is the more prevalent than others. Notre Dame is the highest-represented college at Redwoods with nine players on the roster.
Duke comes in next with three.
Irish at Redwoods
When the new PLL clubs were formed in 2019, there was a clear decision to pack the Redwoods team with players from Notre Dame.
These six Irish players were still on the roster in 2022:
- Garrett Epple, graduated 2017
- Ryder Garnsey, 2019
- Eddy Glazener, 2016
- Matt Kavanagh, 2016
- Jack Near, 2015
- Sergio Perkovic, 2017
- John Sexton, 2018
In our article on player earnings at Redwoods, we estimated that three of these six were among the top earnings at the club.
As you can see from the graduation dates, Ryder Garnsey was straight out of college and younger than the others. But there was a spine of four or five players who had been college teammates.
That’s a great way of establishing cohesiveness in the early days of a new club.
Redwoods continued to source outstanding players from the Indiana University. Arden Cohen was picked in the 2022 college draft.
And fellow alumnus Ryan Hallenbeck was plucked from the player pool that season.
Blue Devils at Redwoods
Redwoods made a shrewd transfer when they got Myles Jones from Chaos in 2020. Jones was a PLL All-Star the following year.
I’m sure Nakeie Montgomery and Joe Robertson had followed Myles path when the two were teammates at Duke.
Redwoods picked Nakeie in the 2022 college draft and plucked Joe from the player pool that year.
Other colleges at Redwoods
Four colleges have two players at Redwoods:
- Cornell
- Maryland
- Rutgers
- Virginia
These are the colleges that have one representative at the club (not all are Division 1):
- Brown
- Denver
- High Point
- Hofstra
- Nazareth
- RIT
- Salisbury
- York
Former Rivals, Current Teammates
Although there are a lot of Notre Dame alumni at Redwoods, we’ve shown that there are plenty of other colleges represented at the club.
It may seem like having players from so many different colleges reduces the advantage of a shared history.
But of course, Irish has a traditional rivalry with Duke and Virginia in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
We’ve already talked about the Blue Devils. There are also two players from Virginia at the club: Charlie Bertrand and Pat Harbeson.
Then there are the Brown and Cornell alumni who were rivals in the Ivy League Conference. Jack Kelly is the lone Bear (Brown), while Rob Pannell and Clarke Petterson are the two Cornell players.
Hometowns and High Schools
We’ve looked at the colleges, but what about the players’ hometowns?
Two of the Redwoods players are from the same hometown.
Pat Harbeson and Tim Troutner come from Annapolis in Maryland. However, they went to different schools and colleges.
Two of the Canadian players attended the same high school. Ryan Lee and Clarke Petterson don’t just share the same position. They also both went to The Hill Academy in Ontario.
There are about two years in age difference between them. But it’s a small-ish school, and they would have known each other.
They are also the only Canadian players at Redwoods. That’s in contrast to the higher numbers at other clubs like Cannons and Chaos.
Will The Club Eventually Have A Home Base?
There is speculation that the PLL will switch from a touring model to the more traditional league with clubs based in a home city.
If that’s the case, then it’s reasonable to guess that the Redwoods would base themselves in California.
The PLL would likely want a strong club in The Golden State. One of big investors in the PLL is a private equity firm based in Los Angeles. You can get more background on The Chernin Group in our write-up on who owns Redwoods (and the PLL in general).
