Not much in the way of football recruiting info today, so I’ll drop some lacrosse knowledge. Yes, I’m doing a recruiting post for a sport that is not only non-revenue, but not even varsity. Partially inspired by commenters who have filled me in on a few guys to look out for (special thanks to Roger and Old Blue). Quick note: since Michigan’s program is club, it’s difficult to tell which players are actually going to be enrolling in Ann Arbor (the last couple years’ commitment lists seem to have a bunch of guys who never ended up on the team), since there are no letters of intent. The full list (from LaxPower):
| ID | Div | Name | Hometown | State | HighSchool | HS_St | Position | Status | College |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 504 | U | McGee, Conor | Baltimore | MD | Gilman School | MD | Goalie | R | Michigan |
| 737 | U | Abdelnour, Cy | Ann Arbor | MI | Pioneer | MI | Goalie | R | Michigan |
| 978 | U | Johnson, J.D. | Malibu | CA | Loyola-Los Angeles | CA | Defense | R | Michigan |
| 993 | U | Steenland, Willie | Minneapolis | MN | Blake School | MN | Midfield | R | Michigan |
| 1593 | U | Gualtieri, Andrew | Amagansett | NY | East Hampton | NY | Midfield/FO | R | Michigan |
| 1594 | U | Silver, Harrison | Cross River | NY | John Jay-Cross River | NY | Midfield | R | Michigan |
| 1595 | U | Hrusovsky, Joseph | Lake Forest | IL | Lake Forest | IL | Midfield | R | Michigan |
| 1596 | U | Boshes, Lee | Deerfield | IL | Deerfield | IL | LSM | R | Michigan |
| 1597 | U | Gothelf, Ross | Owings Mills | MD | Owings Mills | MD | Defense/LSM | R | Michigan |
| 1598 | U | Paras, Thomas | Lakewood | OH | St. Ignatius | OH | Attack | R | Michigan |
| 1599 | U | Dauch, Zach | Bloomfield Hills | MI | Lahser | MI | Midfield | W | Michigan |
| 1600 | U | Scadron, Travis | Bloomfield Hills | MI | Lahser | MI | Midfield | W | Michigan |
| 1620 | U | Ives, Joey | Newton | MA | Newton South | MA | Defense | R | Michigan |
| 1720 | U | Asher, Nick | Portage | MI | Portage Northern | MI | Midfield | R | Michigan |
| 1762 | U | Cox, Forrest | Alexandria | VA | Phillips Andover | MA | Defense | R | Michigan |
| 1953 | U | Wells, Adam | Lake Orion | MI | Cranbrook Kingswood | MI | Goalie | W | Michigan |
| 2143 | U | Sklarin, Jeff | Atherton | CA | Menlo Atherton | CA | Midfield/Attack | W | Michigan |
Conor McGee, G, Baltimore MD
1st team all-Baltimore selection by the Baltimore Messenger. McGee is the only player on the list that is not playing varsity in college, except for one player moving along to a boarding school (where he’ll undoubtedly rock some serious pastels) and one junior. Gilman is a serious lacrosse school (unlike those total scrubs from Brother Rice), finishing the year ranked #1 in the country. McGee received interest from smaller D-1 schools, but opted for the big-university experience at Michigan. According to the LaxPower database, he’s the nation’s top goalie that will head to a club program.
There is, oddly enough, a ton of video of McGee available, most likely stemming from the fact that his high school program is teh rulz:
There are also non-embeddable Gilman highlights out there if you’re interested.
Cy Abdelnour, G, Ann Arbor MI
Since Conor McGee was the top goalie in the nation to go club, it may be expected that the Wolverines would let several other goalies slide through their grasp before picking up another in the class. That’s not the case, however, as Pioneer’s Cy Abdelnour is the second-best goalie in the class of 2009 to commit to a club school, and he’s also going to Michigan (the first goalie headed to a non-Michigan club team is the #1156 overall recruit, headed to Florida State). He had also been recruited by D-3 Adrian. Cy is a Peruvian adoptee whose adopted father was a linebacker at Florida, and though he’s a little guy (5-6, 150), he led Pioneer to unprecedented heights in the state tournament. He was named first-team all-state in 2008, alongside Quinnipiac signee TJ Yost..
JD Johnson, D, Malibu CA
JD Johnson hails from Los Angeles, where he played at Loyola Academy. He’s a long-stick midfielder/defenseman who was first-team all-league. In addition to his defensive prowess, he was the faceoff man for the Cubs. I couldn’t find measurements on Johnson, but from the video, it appears that he’s much bigger than most of his opponents.
Willie Steenland, M, Minneapolis MN
Steenland was the leader of his Blake School team in 2009, after the departure of 2008’s star player, Dartmouth’s Kip Dooley (who was the Big Green’s leader among freshmen in all statistical categories – please click that link, if only to see Dooley’s outfit). He led his Blake Bears to a fourth-place finish in the state. Steenland was not a consistent scoring threat for his team, but managed to score more than a goal per game over the season while excelling on defense.
Andrew Gualtieri, M, Amagansett NY
Andrew Gualtieri is a midfielder/faceoff specialist from Long Island. For his East Hampton/Bridgehampton team in 2009, he scored 10 (or 12?) goals on the year, and had 4 (maybe 5?) assists. His lack of scoring output leads me to believe that Michigan is looking at him primarily as a faceoff specialist, though some articles on him implied that he ran the offense for the Bonackers. East Hampton/Bridgehampton also sent two players two varsity programs in the class of 2009, with Jared Bowe heading to Delaware and Mark Simmons on his way to Wesleyan.
Harrison Silver, M, Cross River NY
Harrison Silver is a midfielder/faceoff specialist from John Jay High School in Cross River New York, a traditionally strong lacrosse program (1 D-I and 6 D-II players in the class of ’09, in addition to Silver, and 6 D-I and 6 D-III players in the previous class). He earned playing time as a sophomore and a junior, but as a senior, Silver was named a captain for the Indians. He’s a little guy, at 5-9 and 160 pounds, yet still managed to be named all-section (and was a halfback on the Indians’ football squad).
Joseph Hrusovsky, M, Lake Forest IL
The last name likely sounds familiar to Michigan lacrosse fans, as Joseph’s older brother, Anthony, will be entering his senior season with the Wolverines in the fall (his 5th academic year). Joseph was all-state his junior season, as well as his senior year. He’s a high-scoring midfielder (not unlike older bro).
Lee Boshes, LSM, Deerfield IL
Lee Boshes is a longtick middie/defenseman who is one of the stronger defensive players in the Michigan class.
Naturally, Boshes is one of the team’s captains this season.
“He plays long stick middle,” said Deerfield coach Derrick Tiveron. “And defense. He has done a fantastic job helping us to build our defensive unit.”
Among Michigan’s top recruits, he and JD Johnson are the only players who appear to be defensive specialists. Since Michigan’s program is built around a strong defense, adding top defensive players is certainly a priority.
…and I guess the top 8 recruits is a good enough place to stop for now. If you’d like to share info on any of the guys mentioned (or any of those that I didn’t cover in further detail), feel free to do so in the comments.
Posted under Other Sports, Recruiting
Tags: lacrosse
Joey Hrusovsky, outstanding player, Michigan will be very impressed with him. Can faceoff, play shut down defense, and score at will. One of the best and most underrated players in Illinois due to the stockload of talent on Lake Forest. Lee Boshes played very weak competition at Deerfield (Lower tier school in Illinois) and who knows how his skills will translate to Michigan
I sent you an email. The numbers on the left hand side are not rankings. They are simply the order in which these players were entered into the recruiting database. Michigan did get some good players though.
A lacrosse recruiting update. YES!
Adam Wells, the goalie from Cranbrook who is listed as a walk-on, was a high school All-American this year. So, with the two guys I assume they have coming back, the two you listed, and Wells, that’s five very good goalies. I can’t imagine they keep all five.
JD Johnson was also an All-American this year, as was Thomas Paras, an attackman from St. Ignatious HS in Cleveland.
Interesting to note that Steenland’s father is the outgoing CEO of Northwest Airlines (and now on several Boards, including Chrysler), and Johnson’s dad is the CEO of Herbalife and former VP at Disney. If Coach Paul ever wants varsity lacrosse at Michigan he needs people like that on his side.
Andrew is a face off specialist trained by Matt Schomberg (John Glynn’s f/o coach-mentor) Schommy is also a special teams coach for the LI Lizards. News paper got it wrong, as a team leader Andrew helped anchor the defense. New to the team, played only one season, transfer from a small private school to complete his senior yr. If Andrew won the f/o he turned the ball over to the offense, if he lost the face off he stayed on and played center d. Highest shot percentage on the team w/ the lowest number of shots on goal.
As per your comments: “… Michigan would probably have a ton of trouble recruiting, but as Brian mentioned last week, since when has Michigan struggled getting kids from New York to come here? With (potentially) some of the best facilities in the country, it wouldn’t take long for Michigan to build a respectable, though not Syracuse/Maryland/Hopkins-level recruiting ability”.
Andrew Gualtieri is a popular player from Eastern LI. The UM Coach “recruited” Andrew away from the Deerfield Academy, MA from attending a PG yr. (The decision to attend UM negated offers from other top D-1 & D-3 programs). After 3 practice sessions Andrew Gualtieri was cut because the rooster was too large & Coach Paul believed after 11 face off opportunities that Andrew was too small for his position and expendable. The Membership of the EH Youth Lacrosse Community doubts very seriously if the Michigan Club program could “recruit” another player from Suffolk County after the treatment Andrew Gualtieri received.