New Jersey Lacrosse 2021

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Trentonian Article

Lawrenceville Boys Recruiting Nationally to Turn into Powerhouse
by Greg Johnson

LAWRENCEVILLE — A quick glance at The Lawrenceville School's boys lacrosse roster provides insight into the type of program that the Big Red are building.

Of the 32 varsity players, 18 are from different states and six are from Ontario in Canada. Five of the eight New Jersey players are from outside Mercer County.

Over the last two years, Lawrenceville has molded talent from all over to morph into one of the country's premier high school programs under coach Jon Posner.

"I just think he's got the best connections in high school lacrosse," said junior attackman Hunter Chauvette, an Ohio native who previously played for Posner at Culver Academies in Indiana.

Lawrenceville hired Posner in 2020 after he compiled a 280-55 record in 16 seasons at Culver. Those teams were frequently ranked top-10 nationally and finished No. 1 according to various publications in 2017 (USA Today), 2018 (US Lacrosse) and 2019 (Inside Lacrosse).

Those results are beginning to translate at Lawrenceville, where the Big Red have gone from being one of the best teams in the state to one of the best teams in the country.

Lawrenceville improved to 8-3 this season with a dominant 24-2 win Wednesday at Violich Field against Christian Brothers Academy. Its only three losses are to ranked out-of-state teams: Calvert Hall (Maryland), Boys' Latin (Maryland) and Brunswick School (Connecticut).

"From last year I think we've made a bunch of improvements," Chauvette said. "You can see from our schedule, playing teams like Malvern and Haverford (Pennsylvania teams) and rolling them. Last year didn't go great for us, (but we) brought in some really good new guys, rebuilt a little bit and we're building a powerhouse here."

Lawrenceville, which beat Hun by 12 goals two weeks ago, currently ranks No. 8 in Inside Lacrosse's national rankings and is poised to repeat as Prep A champions and Mid-Atlantic Prep League champions in New Jersey.

Chauvette is one of three Yale commits on the team along with midfielder Lucas Osborne (Colorado native) and goalie George Northup (California native).

Lawrenceville's other college commits currently include midfielder Brooks English (Johns Hopkins), midfielder Chris Begier (Bucknell), midfielder DJ Clark (Denver), midfielder Chuck Rawson (Johns Hopkins), defenseman Quintan Kilrain (Syracuse), defenseman Tyler Mininno (Harvard), defenseman Dom Mauretti (Hamilton) and face-off specialist Robert Simone (Army).

Playing at Lawrenceville prepares players for college at a level unlike most high school programs — certainly more so than any in New Jersey.

"A lot of our new guys coming in, they're not used to playing at a college system like how Coach P runs his programs," Chauvette said. "We worked all winter getting guys ready to play this spring and used to our system."

Essentially the whole team plays for the Big Red Lacrosse Club during the offseason. In the winter, the players typically lift weights three times per week and do position work four times per week. Once the season hits, they practice for about two hours per day on non-game days.

Along with Posner's connections and intense system, Chauvette said that geography is another perk of coming to Lawrenceville to play lacrosse.

"Midwest lacrosse really isn't a powerhouse like it is down here," Chauvette said. "I know going to Culver, to play a good team it was usually traveling like five, six hours. Our bus rides to Baltimore would be 13 to 15 hours. Here it's just two hours. Down the road we play Hun. Brunswick is like an hour and a half away. There's good teams everywhere unlike the Midwest."

None better in New Jersey these days than Lawrenceville.

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