After the Ohio State men’s lacrosse team settled into their seats in a suite at Ohio Stadium — aka the Horseshoe — on a Friday night back in September, they did not watch star quarterback Justin Fields lead the Buckeyes on one scoring drive after another.
Their entertainment of choice — the movie “Wedding Crashers” — did include some football, though.
“On Zoom you can’t really hear each other laugh,” Ohio State and U.S. U19 head coach Nick Myers said. “It was just nice to hear everyone laugh and enjoy some company.”
The movie night was the first time the Buckeyes were together as a team in person since they upset No. 14 Notre Dame 13-11 at the Shoe on March 12.
The signature win was their third game in 10 days and felt like a turning point. Senior attackman Tre Leclaire scored five goals, including the go-ahead tally with 1:40 remaining. That brought his total to 135, only 12 goals behind Logan Schuss’s career record. Ryan Terefenko — a three-time All-American at short stick defensive midfield — collected seven ground balls. Jeff Henrick, the program’s active leader in caused turnovers, caused another and set his career mark at 30.
“I’m just really proud of the way the boys fought tonight,” Myers said after the game, which included nine ties and four lead changes. The team hoped to carry that momentum into their home matchup against Denver the following Sunday.
But in the weeks following the cancellation of the season on March 12, there were more questions than answers. On April 2, however, the program announced that their star senior trio of Terefenko, Henrick and LeClaire, who all played in the national championship game as freshmen and were selected in the first two rounds of the NLL Draft last month, would return to Columbus for a fifth year.
“It was really about the opportunity to come back and teach the Buckeye Way to another group of incoming freshmen,” Terefenko said on The Buckeye Lacrosse Podcast, hosted by 2013 captain and current Archers midfielder Dominique Alexander. “That was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”
While Terefenko and Henrick are now three-time captains, the program has no shortage of leaders to lean on as it has faced the unprecedented circumstances brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Former Furman goalie Alec Van de Bovenkamp and Hofstra defenseman Eric Wenz, who joined Ohio State as grad transfers, were both captains at their previous schools.
All five fifth-years took a picture together on August 25, the first day of classes. In the photo, Henrick held a small sign that read, “First Day of 17th Grade.” Myers believes the leadership from the team’s 13 seniors, including the fifth years, has been phenomenal, but also praised the resilience demonstrated particularly from his 10 freshmen.
Ohio State prides itself on being a player-driven program, especially during the offseason. They have a big brother program. They have the “Blueprint” built on the pillars that sound Belicheckian: “All In,” “Do Your Job” and “We Not Me.”
The team that hails from 12 states and two Canadian provinces “attacked” (to use Myers’ word) the challenge of staying engaged despite being physically separated. They sustained that level of commitment through the summer. There were wall ball challenges posted to their GroupMe and countless Zooms, some with the coaches but many others on their own. Myers had more communication with his players in the offseason than any year in the past. A message from Terefenko to the Buckeyes from back in May during a Zoom stuck with him.
Their goal this year is to be the most connected team in college lacrosse.
They’ve carried that mission into the fall, despite the noticeable differences in Columbus. Around 70 percent of classes are virtual and approximately 30 of the 49-man roster are taking entirely online classes. Every player but one, Myers noted, is currently on campus.
“Put your parent hat on for a second,” Myers said. “You think about how challenging that is to have your son, especially a freshman, go away to school for the first time in a pandemic. And we have six Canadians, you know, so you’re sending your son to a different country.”
That understanding has weighed heavy on Myers. He takes the responsibility of his players’ health and safety very seriously. He knows most coaches do. Every two to three weeks, he conducts a Zoom meeting with the Buckeyes’ parent group to keep them up to date on the team’s situation.
“We’ve had some challenges,” Myers admitted. “I’m not going to get into the specifics of who and what and how, but it’s a bumpy road. You’ve got to embrace it. We’re fortunate right now that we’re in a pretty good spot. I think that the Big Ten and specifically what Ohio State has put in place to ensure the safety and health of the athletes is second to none.”
In addition to twice weekly COVID testing, any athlete that does contract the virus has to take a Cardiac MRI to gain clearance and assurance before they return to the field. An initial report issued by Ohio State’s Comprehensive Monitoring Team on October 22 noted the university was conducting four kinds of COVID-19 testing. As of October 31, 184,334 tests had been administered.
“Our students have been routinely showing up for testing, participating in the contact tracing process and protecting the Buckeye community through isolation and quarantine — all factors that have contributed to the relative success we’ve seen so far,” Amy Fairchild, dean of the University’s College of Public Health who leads the CMT, told Ohio State News.
“Coupled with ongoing measures including proper masking, physical distancing and avoiding crowded gatherings — which are all supported by our public health campaign — I’m optimistic that we can continue to control transmission on and off campus, even as increases in infection rates are being seen in communities throughout the state.”
The upside for the Buckeyes came last week when they had their first 20-hour practice week after previously being limited to smaller group non-contact sessions. On the football practice fields that Urban Meyer used to patrol, the lacrosse team brought the “juice” during live 6-on-6 reps.
The hope is to get in a couple more weeks of practices before their final day of the semester on November 21, then have the student-athletes return around January 4 or 5 after the holiday break. According to the website of the Ohio State Office of Academic Affairs, the first week of classes that start on January 11 will be online so that members of the university community have ample time to quarantine prior to any in-person sessions.
“You can’t get too far ahead, because nobody knows,” Myers said. “You just continue to focus on a win-the-day mindset. As we say with [Team] USA, you have to be grateful for everything and entitled to nothing.”
Amongst other limitations, the Buckeyes do not have student managers this year, and their director of operations is currently furloughed as part of the $6.1 million in cuts that the athletic department — one of approximately 20 nationwide that has been 100 percent self-sustaining — made from sports’ operating budgets.
In light of those changes, the team’s “All In” mentality was evident last Friday. During practice, they had a couple players shadow reps while holding GoPro cameras to get some low-level footage and a different angle than from the film tower. That creativity extends to the French Field House Weight Room, where the strength and conditioning staff devise workouts that maintain social distance and do not include spotters.
“It’s been all hands on deck and everyone has been asked to do a little more,” Myers said. “I give a lot of credit to our men.”
Once the credits to “Wedding Crashers” rolled and the coaches introduced the freshmen to the rest of the team around 9:00 p.m. on that Friday in September, the Buckeyes’ next move was unscripted. They walked down to the field in the Shoe. They stretched and then sat on the turf. Some talked. Others sat in silence and looked up at the empty stands.
Everyone embraced the moment being together again.
“You could feel the energy,” Myers said. “Zoom has been very, very positive in efforts to connect us, but there’s nothing like that in-person feeling and the energy of being around each other. It really felt like that was the start of something.”