Poly Lacrosse Aims for Win Against Rival City

He may not be asking for perfection, yet Polytechnic Institute varsity lacrosse coach Raymond Harcum is looking for the Engineers to do better than the team did last year.  In his two previous seasons as coach at the Cold Spring Lane school, the team has won all of its league games except those against City. A win against the school’s rival is high on Harcum’s list.

“It’s not even really reach perfection, but do better than we did last year, which is what?,” Harcum said.  “Win the City game and try to beat everybody else.”

That could be a tough order since the team has to replace Dave Goldman, who graduated and is now playing NCAA Division I lacrosse at Jacksonville.

“I don’t even know if he’ll actually be replaced, but he’ll be severely missed,” Harcum said of the attackman.

But Harcum does have about 15 players returning for this year’s team, where he expects the defense to lead the way.

“Right now, it’s looking defensively,” Harcum said during an early March interview when asked to assess the Engineers' strength. “We’re struggling right now offensively to understand the concept, but defensively we’re very aggressive and we are fundamentally sound.”

Alfonso Dulaney, a senior, and junior Aaron Ingram are long pole players Harcum feels will anchor that end of the field.

The Engineers will have another hole to fill at goalie. Harcum is looking to Nicholas Kostas, who showed interest in the position last season, and has since played summer and winter indoor lacrosse to gain some needed experience.

On midfield, Harcum expects senior Nicolas Edwards to play a major role on one of two midfields the team plans to run.

“He’s a pretty good kid with a lot of experience,” Harcum said. “He’s really invested in this game, he’s put in a lot of practice time, played on other teams in the summertime, things of that nature.”

Edwards will be the primary face-off specialist for the Engineers, who will also have Iniubong Iniunam available.

Yet even with Edwards and Iniunam, Poly has some more holes to fill at midfield.

“We lost a lot (to graduation) on the midfield, so we’re probably redeveloping a little bit,” he said. “Other than the loss of the great attackman we had, we’ve lost good middies—our whole first midfield is gone.”

Harcum said two juniors—Gerod Wilson and Malik Embree—will lead the attack.

“(The attack) still has some ground to cover, However, they are very much veteran players, and they’ve been playing during the off season,” he said.

The coach said it is about 50-50 when asked whether lacrosse was the primary sport for his team or whether it is a sport to play in the spring.

“Both—some of these kids, it’s a sport to play in the spring,” he said.  “Some of them have the desire to go and play in college—they want to go to the NCAA and play.”

When asked to place Poly in context with other lacrosse schools in the region, Harcum said his mission is to be competitive with the high-powered public and private schools.

“Before the end of the MSA (Maryland Scholastic Association), Poly was still in the A conference with the private schools—they were still an A conference contender in lacrosse,” he said.  “I believe that we can compete with some of them, but I don’t think we’re ready right now to compete with certain (MIAA) A conference lacrosse teams—the top of the A. That’s a pretty good program.”

Yet for the present, the goal for the Baltimore City District Nine public school remains the same: to win the City game and try to beat everybody else.

“My biggest challenge is always the state playoffs,” Harcum said. “We try to beat the last team alive—everyone wants one more game. We want to make it to the top. We want to make it to the state.”