With over 20 committed recruits, a growing coaching staff and less than a year to go, the Mercer County Community College men’s lacrosse program is full steam ahead to their inaugural season. Once the team breaks ground next spring in their first game, it will conclude a near four-year process and the construction of Mercer’s first new athletic program since the inception of the men’s cross country team in 2014.
However in comparison to the creation of the men’s cross country team in 2014, and the women’s team four years earlier, the creation of this program is larger in scale, ambition and investment according to Athletic Director John Simone. “It’s a lot bigger,” Simone says, adding, “It has a structural impact, like a new locker room. We had locker rooms available for the other two teams because those are small teams of seven or eight players, this could be a team of 30.”
The investment required to finance this new lacrosse team eclipses that of the cross country teams as well. According to Simone the program’s startup budget is close to $50,000. It is a budget that accounts for supplies like helmets and gloves, as well as the structural factors mentioned by Simone, like a new field and locker room.
According to Mercer’s Executive Director of Financial and Accounting Services, Brian McCloskey, the demand for college lacrosse in the Mercer County area was a key factor in the decision to greenlight and financing this program. After the first year the cost to maintain the program on a year-to-year basis will shrink significantly, and a growing local interest in college lacrosse is expected to make the program lucrative going forward.
“We have a model that projects a certain number of students that will come here that would not have come here had we not had the program to offer,” McCloskey said. “It is expected to be self-sufficient in year one.”
The program’s budget can also support a staff of up to three coaches, which Simone and head coach Rob Siris are already acting on. They have recently added coach Matt Serfass, a former linebacker at Shippensburg University, to serve as the defensive coordinator on Siris’s staff. Serfass has worked alongside Siris in the past, as he served the same role for Siris during their tenure at Hopewell.
“He’s got a great rapport with the men on the team already,” Siris said. “He was a college linebacker, so for him he has a lot of experience in understanding what it means to be a collegiate student athlete.”
According to Siris, Serfass also brings a breath of experience with speed, agility and strength training, assets the staff is already taking advantage of as they prepare their players for game action a year from now.
“We’ve been bringing them to practices a few days a week, skills and drills to try to see what their ability level is and trying to form a team building and team bonding aspect,” Serfass said.
The process of building the team is ongoing as Siris and Serfass are still actively adding talent from around New Jersey and beyond. The roster as it stands now is offensively headlined by top recruits Justin Brown, a senior at Cherry Hill East who is committed for next spring, and Ocean County transfer Sam Buck. On defense goalkeepers Colin White from North Brunswick and Hayden Lions out of Northern Burlington are key recruits for Siris, who places heavy value on depth at the goalkeeper position.
While the likes of Brown, White and Lions are seen as the marquee players for the program now, Serfass believes that the nature of building a talented roster at the collegiate level can be an inexact science.
“It’s totally different at the high school level. Not only that, but different areas have some stronger lacrosse than others. So you could have a defender that stands out amongst his peers in one place that maybe wouldn’t even be in the starting six at another place,” Serfass said.
As the final phase of the recruiting process begins, Siris will also look to add another coach to the staff at some point in the summer to coordinate the offense.
