Greene Turtle Lacrosse Wins Tournaments

BERLIN- Providing further evidence lacrosse is growing by leaps and bounds on the Eastern Shore and gaining more respect along the way, the Greene Turtle Elite travel team continued to roll through its summer tournament schedule last weekend, sweeping all of its games in the prestigious Gait Cup at Gettysburg College to take its second straight title.

The Greene Turtle Elite travel team is basically made up of two teams; one made up of some of the best high school players in grades 9-10 in the area, and another made up of players under age 15. The team was formed about a year and a half ago to provide an opportunity for some of the area’s best young lacrosse talent to play in the best tournaments throughout the mid-Atlantic region and gain valuable exposure in front of some of the top college coaches and recruiters in the country.

The current teams are made up of players from high schools all over the shore with the majority coming from local schools such as Worcester Prep and Stephen Decatur. The roster also includes some of the top players from other private schools in the area such as Salisbury School and Saints Peter and Paul, for example, as well as some of the other top public schools in the area such as Parkside and Easton. A handful of players come from Delaware schools such as Cape Henlopen and Sussex Tech.

In the beginning, the Greene Turtle Elite teams took their lumps against some of the top youth programs on the western side of the Bay Bridge and beyond in traditional lacrosse powerhouse areas such as Baltimore and Annapolis, but the local team has caught up to those programs and even gone beyond in the last year or so, collecting plenty of tournament hardware and toppling a few traditional powers along the way.

For example, two weeks ago, the Greene Turtle team swept all five of its games in the Summer Exposure tournament in Annapolis against some of the top programs on the East Coast to win the championship. The Turtle team stunned Georgetown Prep in the title game of that tournament.

Last weekend, the Greene Turtle Elite team repeated its recent run of success, going 7-0 in the Gait Cup at Gettysburg College to advance to its second straight championship game. The Turtle team defeated Baltimore powerhouse Loyola in the title game, gaining even more respect for the growing lacrosse presence on the Eastern Shore.

The recent success of the Greene Turtle Elite team is just a sample of how far youth lacrosse in the Ocean City area and across the Eastern Shore has grown in recent years. Other local programs such as Beach Lacrosse, OC Lax, and the Greene Turtle girls’ lacrosse program have achieved similar success at regional and national events.

The success of the youth programs in the area is carrying over to the next level with schools like Decatur and Worcester Prep gaining more respect in the lacrosse world. The exposure is also paying off for some of the area’s best talent with more and more area high school players getting scholarship offers at top college programs.