New England lacrosse takes center stage as host of Final Four

Duke sophomore Max Quinzani has scored from all angles with 59 goals this season. SI

Five years ago, Julia Chuslo, an accomplished architect and mother of three lacrosse players, was designing her family's new house in Duxbury, Mass., a coastal suburb 35 miles south of Boston.

Accounting for preventive measures to avoid replacing shattered windows in her new home as she had in her old one, she penciled in a blueprint for a wall that would span the length and width of the garage wall facing the backyard. "It's become known as the boys' ball-wall," says Rob-Roy Quinzani, her husband. "We once heard Ryan Powell talk about throwing a ball against a wall as a way for development. So we built the wall."

To this day, the wood panel stands, colored in green and pimpled by balls that have been ricocheted off it. What the wood preserved in panes, though, it bred in records broken. The couple's eldest son, Max, 20, a Duke sophomore, pounded the wall for untold hours before breaking Casey Powell's (Ryan's brother) national high school career points record with 577, while at Duxbury High. "He's a great finisher," says New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, captain of the 1971 New England champion Phillips Andover team who went on to be captain of the men's lacrosse team at Wesleyan University and frequents area lacrosse games to watch his sons Stephen, now a freshman defenseman at Rutgers, and Brian, a sophomore at The Rivers School in Weston, Mass., play. "Duxbury has become a power in its own right."

When Quinzani returns home this weekend for the Blue Devils' national semifinal against defending champion John Hopkins -- a rematch of last year's final won by the Blue Jays, 12-11 -- he will be the poster boy for a growing legion of lacrosse players. Not a hotbed garnering the attention of Long Island, Western New York and Baltimore, New England is growing the game from the grassroots. "It's not just quantity of players nowadays," Belichick says. "You can see proper teaching and quality of play improving."

As hosts for the NCAA championships at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., the region will see three storied programs in Virginia, Syracuse and Hopkins as well as Duke -- which is appearing in its third semifinal in four years. "Kids here just don't get to see the top players up close on a regular basis," says Duxbury coach Chris Sweet, whose program has won 86 consecutive games against Massachusetts public high schools and is seeking its sixth Division I title in seven years.

Last year, Quinzani -- an undersized 5-foot-8, 170-pound attack who won three straight state titles at Duxbury -- entered Duke with a record to his name and an asterisk accompanying his reputation. Wielding the record stick, many thought Quinzani (who was not heavily recruited by higher-level schools) scored his goals against lesser competition. "I don't think I was really accepted until midway through last season," says Quinzani, who netted 24 goals and did not start until the ACC tournament as a freshman but scored 59 goals and started all 18 games this season. "I was an unknown player with a known record."

While Quinzani's father, a former player and coach for Boston University's club team, introduced him to the game, the growing numbers of New England youths playing lacrosse also owe thanks to trailblazers like Lowell (Mass.) coach Burke Walker. A Baltimore native with a lacrosse background who needed an activity to fill his son Justin's time while he ran errands, Walker established a youth program in Duxbury. By founding one that taught fundamentals and bought the 23 original signees a stick and a ball for $25, he led the fight for the high school to start a program in 1993. For the first years of the program's existence, players' parents footed the $13,000 expense, but since winning its first state title in 1999 it has enjoyed the most public school success in the region.

"There are Daniel Boones out there who have carried the game to some of the newer frontiers," says Brown coach Lars Tiffany, who has witnessed marked growth in the game's among New Englanders. "The popularity is still in pockets throughout, but its' certainly continuing to grow."

Not to be lost among the Maryland natives who have made their way north, Belichick has not forgotten his roots. Having befriended Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala in recent years, the Patriots coach has been a visitor to practices. They have discussed varying topics from the crossovers between the two sports to game preparations and film study. After last weekend's quarterfinal win at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., Belichick was in the Blue Jays' locker room. Last season, while Belichick visited a few practices, he warmed up the goalie with Derry, N.H. native and Patriots fan Steven Boyle. "I think he snuck one past our goalie Jesse [Schwartzman] and was riding him a bit," says Boyle, a 6-foot, 180-pound attack who scored a hat trick in last week's game.

"Bill has a great mind for the game," says Justin Walker, who grew up playing in Duxbury under his father and has coached both of Belichick's sons at The Rivers School. "I think football is his job, but lacrosse is his passion."

As the game is further woven into New England's sports fabric, more attention and outside interests have become intertwined as well. More than 40 games were broadcast on ESPNU this season, and some prep schools are seeking to make their school the destination for top lacrosse players the way Oak Hill Academy (Mouth of Wilson, Va.) has become the drawing power for basketball. "It used to be a niche sport with more camaraderie," Justin Walker says. "As progress comes, you have to sacrifice some of that to let more people and interests in."

In an age of increasingly competitive college admissions, parents also see the game as an opportunity for their children -- who may not exceed at football, basketball, baseball or more traditional sports -- to gain entry to top schools. "Max Quinzani's the poster boy of the non-phenomenal specimens that find success in this sport," Justin Walker says.

At Belichick's workplace Saturday, New England will be at the center of the lacrosse universe. South of Boston, the Quinzani family, which owns a bakery, is accommodating Duke families throughout the weekend. Max says that friends from school and home will meet at his house. No doubt there will be players with sticks and balls, pounding the wall as the grassroots patriots continue to bang their drum slowly. Says Quinzani, "The region is ready for its close up."