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ach time Kyle Gallagher gets into his set position and prepares to take another faceoff, the Hofstra University freshman puts that incredibly scary experience further behind him.
But with each passing day that finds Gallagher going about his business — as an exceptional student and as an unexpected specialist for the 10th-ranked Pride — it’s clear that Gallagher’s first collegiate season will always be defined by an astonishing comeback.
How could it not be? By any conventional measurement, Gallagher probably should not be playing this season, maybe not ever.
How can a young man — just three weeks away from his first college semester as a presidential scholarship recipient — suffer a broken neck after taking a nighttime dive into unexpectedly shallow water, go through fusion surgery to repair damaged vertebrae, report to school on time wearing a cumbersome neck brace and go on to produce a 3.96 GPA as an economics major?
How could Gallagher flatly turn down the idea of applying for a medical redshirt, even though he was unable to play lacrosse for the entire fall, wouldn’t shed that brace for nearly five months and wouldn’t be medically cleared to play until late January?
How could Gallagher, with such rusty skills and still miles away from being in true lacrosse shape, step into the unforgiving arena of varsity competition so early and with such confidence, after senior faceoff man Kris Clarke went down with a foot injury shortly before the season opener?
And how did Gallagher become such a spark behind Hofstra’s 10-0 start, the first in program history?
Let the head shaking begin.
“It’s almost a miracle that [Gallagher] is doing what he’s doing,” Clarke said. “I wasn’t even sure he was going to enroll this year. I figured he’d take the year off to rehabilitate for sure. He looked so unbelievably stiff when he showed up in that brace. I thought he was totally redshirting.”
“When Kyle got here, I was like, ‘Holy crap, this kid is coming into his first year of college with a broken neck,” added Brenden Lynch, a defensive midfielder and faceoff wingman. “I can’t say that I ever doubted him, but c’mon, this is crazy.”
“We’re talking about a cerebral, quiet, low-maintenance kid who is so focused and goal-oriented,” said Seth Tierney, Hofstra’s 11th-year head coach. “[Gallagher] has the largest amount of academic scholarship on the team, so he really gets it done there.”
“It’s always hard on a freshman when he gets hurt, because you can fall way behind,” Tierney added. “But to think that [Gallagher] came into his freshman year and couldn’t even play in the fall after suffering a severe neck injury that could have changed his life or worse — and is now doing this for us — is just incredible. At this point, our expectations [regarding Gallagher] are way out of line [with what he’s gone through.]”
Ask Gallagher to reflect on his most unusual journey, and do not expect a wide-eyed recounting of how he has overcome long odds and all of that.
Gallagher, who has taken more than two-thirds of the Pride’s 280 faceoff attempts and has won a solid 49.3 percent of his 174 draws, is still smarting from Hofstra’s first loss of 2017 on April 15 — and the role he played in a 13-12 loss to visiting Drexel.
Hofstra (10-1, 2-1 in the Colonial Athletic Association) coughed up an 11-6 second-half lead to the Dragons. Although Gallagher won 14 of 26 draws, his five faceoff procedure violations fueled Drexel’s cause. He also struggled in a 15-8 rebound win over UMass, in which he went 8-for-27.
“I’ve got to do a better job of clearing my mind when I go down [into a set position]. I can’t over-think beating the whistle,” Gallagher said. “Honestly, I don’t think I’ve done fantastically this season.
“This is obviously a high level. Given my unusual experience last summer, I guess I’ve done OK, considering I wasn’t sure if I was ever to going to play again,” he added. “It was a game of millimeters between walking or not walking, or possibly worse. I was close to fulfilling a dream to play college lacrosse, and close to being in a wheelchair the rest of my life.”