Approximately 2 ½ years ago, Brad Ledwith and a couple of his friends—who also happened to be parents of youth lacrosse players—gathered for dinner and talked about putting together a lacrosse organization in Morgan Hill.
“I was tired of driving my at the time 8-year-old twin boys to San Jose for them to play,” said Ledwith, a financial adviser and 20-year Morgan Hill resident. “We put on a clinic for five weeks and charged $100, and here we are 2 ½ years later.”
With the help of friends, coaches and non-profit organizations, Ledwith assembled the South County Outlaws, a youth lacrosse program based in Morgan Hill but serving the entire South Valley, including Hollister. The Outlaws currently have two teams, a 12-and-under squad and a 10-and-under team, consisting of a total of 35 players.
Most of the kids are from Morgan Hill; however, there there are also some kids from Gilroy and Hollister, including Matthew DeSilva, a sixth-grader at Rancho San Justo. Michelle DeSilva, Matthew’s mom, raves about the Outlaws program and what it means to have a club program in the area.
“We’re so thankful we have a local club we can go to,” she said. “If we didn’t have the Outlaws, we’d have to go to ADVNC (lacrosse program) in San Francisco, so having this local club in Morgan Hill is amazing. We’re so happy with the Outlaws. It’s run beautifully, the coaching is great, and the communication is open.”
Lacrosse is the fastest growing sport on the West Coast, and also finding it way in the Midwest and South. It’s long been an establishment on the East Coast, where most of the nation’s prized recruits reside. However, with each passing year players are getting plucked in other parts of the country, a telltale sign that the sport is making major inroads.
Speaking of making inroads, the Outlaws are on the rise, too. Their 12-and-under team went 4-0 to win the All West Petaluma 7-V-7 Icebreaker Tournament on Jan. 27, the program’s first tourney win in its short history. In that same tournament two years ago, the team couldn’t win a game, let alone score a goal (they did manage one).
Fast forward 24 months and the Outlaws are an entirely different program.
“These kids have gotten so much better and improved a lot,” Ledwith said.
Some of the players on the team include Colby Allen, Colin Fisher, Nolan Ledwith, DeSilva, Ben Ledwith, Dylan Fisher, J.D. Rosyski, Bennett Nishikawa, Luke Richey and Cameron Kendall. In the tournament, Allen and Fisher were the leading goal scorers, DeSilva and Nolan Ledwith were strong defensively, Ben Ledwith led the team in assists, while Dylan Fisher, Rosyski, Nishikawa, Richey and Kendall all had at least one goal each.
Ledwith said the players are receiving great instruction from coaches Rich Hubbell and Gary Rosyski, who used to play professionally with the San Jose Stealth. Ledwith, who is also a member of the Morgan Hill Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce, continues to grow in his knowledge of the sport.
“I knew nothing about lacrosse 2 ½ years ago. I know a little more than nothing now,” he deadpanned. “But my enthusiasm for the game is pretty exciting, and the reason why it’s the fastest growing sport in youth America is it combines all the sports we love.”
Ledwith’s enthusiasm and ingenuity for the sport has helped South County receive grants to help the program’s initial launch while also being a strong support in helping the organization move forward. Ledwith said the Outlaws have received grants from the Morgan Hill Youth Alliance, the Lacrosse First Stick Program, NorCal Lacrosse and the Morgan Hill Rotary club.
Through the grants, the program has been able to purchase equipment and just as important, a place to store the equipment. With the help of the First Stick Program, the Outlaws have 21 sets of full lacrosse equipment at their disposal. That means if parents are ever on the fence in making a commitment for their kids to the program, Ledwith said South County would allow their kids to borrow the equipment to “to see if they like it.”
“Typically, the barrier entrance for kids to play lacrosse is the equipment,” Ledwith said. “We want to remove that barrier, so we allow the parents to borrow the equipment for their kids, and guess what? Their kids love it. They then buy their own equipment, and this process repeats itself.”
Due to the community support and help of the players’ parents, the South County Outlaws are a homegrown program.
“We’ve been able to build the program from scratch into something viable for years to come,” Ledwith said.
Ledwith wants 250 kids in the program by the end of 2020, knowing that is a benchmark figure.
“When you have 250, that’s when you have a viable program,” he said. “We looked around at Morgan Hill Pony (baseball), Orchard Valley (soccer) and other youth organizations, and they’re all in the 200 to 500 participation rate. So in order to be viable where parents want to plunk down $150 to $300 for a registration fee, they want to know it’ll be around. We want to build something sustainable and ultimately be in Morgan Hill forever.”
Years from now, the hope is that the Outlaws program will act as a feeder program into the high school teams in the South Valley. Christopher and San Benito are the only high schools in the area with lacrosse programs, but that number will likely go up in the years ahead.
San Benito launched its program four years ago, and it routinely draws 55 to 60 players for tryouts every year. Per Ledwith’s conversation with Christopher lacrosse coach Mike Henry, the Cougars had a whopping 63 players try out for the team this season.
