2003 Captain's Newsletter to Alumni Lacrosse Players

Dear Exeter Lacrosse Alumni,

As captains of the 2003 varsity lacrosse team, we are excited about writing this first annual captain's newsletter to lacrosse alumni. Two recent generous gifts to the boys lacrosse program have enabled the school to start a brand new fund entitled Friends of Exeter Lacrosse. In addition to purchasing a full set of new state of the art CPRO helmets for the team this year, we are using some of the money in this new fund to pay for this mailing to all lacrosse alumni. We also hope to use these funds to help defray the costs of equipment for scholarship players, and to improve our meal quality when we have long away games that normally would involve both box lunches and suppers. It is our expectation that this captain's newsletter to alumni will become an annual event.

The great tradition of Exeter lacrosse excellence is alive and well. Our record the past four years has been 13-4 (1999), 15-3 (2000), 14-3 (2001), and 16-4 (2002). Our schedule continues to evolve and become increasingly challenging. This year we are adding perennial Western New England powers Avon Old Farms and Loomis Chaffee. We are also adding two excellent teams from the Massachussetts public school league, Beverly HS and Winchester HS. We are playing the best competition in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and even the two best teams in Rhode Island, Moses Brown and Navy Prep.

Our 2002 season was filled with many great wins, a few very close losses, and many individual accomplishments. Senior attackman Alan Eberstein achieved All-American recognition and posted the 2nd highest single season scoring total in Exeter history with 67 goals and 34 assists. Alan, along with fellow seniors Peter Monroe and Gabe Wood played in the senior East-West All Star Game and helped lead their East team to victory. Many of the 2002 seniors will be playing college lacrosse this year, and they will join more than a dozen Exeter alumni that are already on college rosters. Special recognition goes to Michael Saraceni '00 who won his second national championship as a sophomore attackman on the Middlebury team, and Andrew Sung '00 who was a member of Princeton's DI finalist team that lost a heartbreaker in the championship game to Syracuse. Last year also marked a milestone in head coach Eric Bergofsky's career. He not only celebrated his 25th year coaching lacrosse at Exeter (24 as head coach), but he also reached a rare highlight by recording his 200th career victory as a head coach. In addition, we extended our winning streak against Andover to four in a row with a 15-10 victory, and our alumni team also made it four in a row against Andover with their own 11-5 win.

The 2003 season is looking extremely bright. There is a nucleus of experienced veterans returning from last year's team, and this year's crop of new players promises to be one of the best groups ever. On paper, we look to be extremely tough on defense, very deep in the midfield, and explosive at attack. We cannot wait for the season to begin. Tryouts and indoor practices will run from February 25th through March 13th. We play our first game on Wednesday, April 2nd, just two days after we return from spring break. Coach Bergofsky has developed a great lacrosse web site that we encourage all of you to visit often in order to follow our team. There are pictures and bios on every player, game summaries, individual statistics, and links to other great lacrosse sites. There is also an archive section on the web site that details the records, pictures, and achievements of Exeter lacrosse teams from the beginning of our great tradition in 1935 to the present day. Coach B loves to hear from alumni who visit the site, and he is always looking for suggestions on how to improve this great resource. The URL for our lacrosse site is http://math.exeter.edu/ebergofsky/. Please visit it often, and stay involved in Exeter lacrosse. We hope you enjoyed receiving this first edition of the captain's newsletter. If you have any comments or suggestions, we would love to hear back from you. We also hope to see you at some of our games this year, but especially at Exeter on Saturday, May 24th as we try and make it five in a row against Andover.

Sincerely,

Suresh Jones '03      sjones@exeter.edu
Gavin Nurick '03       gnurick@exeter.edu