Ryan McLaughlin of Mountain Lakes is the NJ.com boys lacrosse Player of the Year, 2022
Jun 30, 2022 09:03AM ● By Mike Kinney, NJ.com
There can’t be many offensive playmakers in New Jersey who would have found comfort in the thought of 6-4, 190-pound longstick middie Ryan McLaughlin of Mountain Lakes actually growing throughout the season.
But when you play for Mountain Lakes, growth - as a technician, a teammate and a thinker - is a requisite element of the journey. Regardless of whether such a wide wingspan allows you to extend your pole toward a ball-carrying opponent and touch the border of neighboring Boonton.When it came to striving for growth in his overall game, though, McLaughlin never saw it as a tedious requirement imposed by legendary head coach Tim Flynn. He viewed it more as an honor or a special treat.
“Ryan is a great kid and he’s always thirsty to get better. That was kind of the mantra for the whole team, but Ryan always took that to heart. Always a lot of intensity and focus in practice,” Flynn said.
It is an intensity and focus that often disrupted the most organized offensive units on Mountain Lakes’ schedule, and the Lakers’ schedule was a who’s who in prolific offensive outfits. An intensity and focus that probably made a lot of very talented, highly recruited midfielders wonder why they didn’t call in sick to school the morning of that particular game.
“He stood out. Sometimes a whole lot,” Flynn said. “Ryan just had a great year. Our whole defense did.”
McLaughlin, a UPenn commit with outstanding footwork and the stick skills of an offensive player, spearheaded a defense that allowed only 4.3 goals a game and helped the Lakers (22-1) win their fourth Tournament of Champions title in the final year of that unique and popular format.
He is the NJ.com Player of the Year for 2022.
Flynn makes it a point to credit the rest of his defense and his goalies whenever he lavishes praise upon McLaughlin because their roles are symbiotic. Or at least they are when working properly.
A 22-1 record and 4.3 goals-against average? “Properly” is a glaring understatement.
Juniors Lucas Sawransky, Gavin Ananian, Nate Holliday and John Hawes anchor that defense along with time-splitting goalies Jimmy Holda, a senior, and Matt Sentowski, a junior, and shortstick middies Ben Buzby, Marco Dzamba and Jimmy Elliott, who comfortably operates on both sides of the field.
“Our whole defense against our schedule putting up a 4.3 all year is just incredible to me. It’s a testament to every defensive kid - goalies, shorts, close, longstick middie, of course,” Flynn said.
“But again, it was kind of nice to have Ryan add to that. The team was doing great stuff and he was able to step into a little bit of a higher level in terms of being disruptive,” he said.
Disruptive is using your well-honed positioning and stick skills to consistently create indecision in the well-regarded middie you are covering. To slow him and the rest of the midfield down just enough to interrupt the flow of the attack line and give your goalie time to react to movement and bark instructions.
McLaughlin scooped up 77 ground balls through a combination of his wing work on faceoffs and forced turnovers and he finished with seven goals and two assists this past spring. That’s disruptive leaking rather heavily into the realm of destructive.
“Ryan totally grew into the position to be a dominant player,” Flynn said. “Solidifying the defense first and then just naturally doing some things that are instinctive. That’s a big part of his game and really fun to watch.
“He has the knack to say, ‘I can’t go out and press out now,’ or, ‘This is an opportunity to press out and make something happen.’ To be able to make that distinction is honestly almost as important as anything else. And, I’ll tell you, there’s not a whole lot of coaching behind that,” he said.
The instincts, the athletic ability seemed to always be tools at McLaughlin’s disposal; he also was a talented receiver for the football team. What McLaughlin had to sharpen along the way was his knowledge and appreciation for patient, fundamental, team-oriented defense.
“He’s added a lot of things to his game the last two years. A lot of the knowledge of when to go, when to pull up,” Flynn said. “He became a better position defender when he needed to be and covered a lot of really strong kids. There were times he had to be that position guy, and he got really, really good at it.”
And there were many times when the close defense was clicking in harmony, which gave McLaughlin the liberty to freelance at his discretion high in the box. Flynn wanted McLaughlin to have that freedom, but knew it could not be granted without the presence of a disciplined close defense.
“We said in the preseason that we’d like to keep Ryan there because he’s so valuable,” Flynn said. “Lucas and the rest of the defenders made that happen. Since they did such a fine job throughout covering the attackmen, we were able to let Ryan do his thing in the midfield.”
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