Podcast: Prep spotlight on Founders, Lakes Region, NESLL and girls

From left, Noah Rodgers of Loomis Chaffee, AJ Yeung of Holderness and Aidan McElrone of Taft.

On this episode of New England Lacrosse Journal’s “Chasing The Goal” podcast, host Kyle Devitte talks with Seamans Media managing editor Mike Zhe, who joins the podcast to preview the upcoming prep season outside of the Independent School League, which was the subject of a previous podcast.

While the ISL is the largest prep league in the region, the Founders League is the oldest, so the next logical step is to walk through that league from the top teams like Loomis Chaffee and Choate, all the way to Trinity-Pawling and Hotchkiss.

From there, Devitte and Zhe take a trip to the Lakes Region, then the NESLL, and conclude with an examination of the top 10 girls prep teams in New England entering the season.

Watch the full podcast below on YouTube. It’s also available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoy it, please leave a rating and a review. Watch more episodes on the Chasing the Goal podcast channel.

Here are some excerpts from the pod.

Mike Zhe: So, you talk about who may be able to challenge Loomis Chaffee (in the Founders), and the first name off your lips was Choate, the runner-up in last year’s Founders League championship tournament — and entering the season as the number one challenger. We talked in the last podcast about 10 or so goals can flip a team’s whole season. 

Kyle Devitte: If you did that with Choate, Choate would be undefeated. That’s how close a lot of their games were. This is a team that builds from the back. This is a momentum team. You’d think, with coach Ethan McDonnell, a Canadian guy, they’re going to play Canadian offense. And, they do, but that’s not the focus of this team. The focus of this team is stopping you, smashing your teeth in, and bringing the ball down the field before scoring on you.

They have plenty of guys who can do that. I love Bryce Privateer, who is also in our top 50 players in the Class ’26. Paul Wable is an excellent shortie going to North Carolina. This is a group that can just make things happen in transition. They can put the ball on the ground and they can make you pay.

Mike Zhe: So, let’s move it from the great state of Connecticut up to the great state of New Hampshire and take a look at the upcoming season in the Lakes Region, a league that‘s near and dear to your heart. You posted your preview last week and I added the headline — “Who follows Holderness in the Lakes Region?”

Kyle Devitte: The best state. I’ll just put that out there. Raising a family, check it out. It’s number one ranked everywhere in the world. All right. Holderness starts with head coach Justin Simon. Listen, I like Justin a lot. He has so much swagger that it leaks into his team. This is a team full of swaggery dudes that are upset that they lost the championship last year to St. Paul’s, and it took a master performance in net from Luka Clark, who made a save with 6 seconds left to win it. It’s the best game I saw last year. 

It was awesome to see St. Paul’s win, but I also kind of sensed that Holderness was like, “Why did we lose?” And I think that these guys did a lot of soul searching. That class were juniors last year and are seniors now, and there are also tons of juniors on this team who are very good.

@TheKyleDevitte
kyle.devitte@laxjournal.com

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