Niskayuna lacrosse team receives championship rings

PHOTOGRAPHER: Peter R. Barber

Members of the Niskayuna High School lacrosse team show off their state championship rings in a ceremony and alumni lacrosse game Wednesday at Schenectady High School.

Thanksgiving eve has a habit of bringing back together old high school buddies. Bars and restaurants are the normal locale for such meetups, but the turf field at Schenectady High School did the trick Wednesday for the Niskayuna boys’ lacrosse program’s annual reunion.

For an especially tight program, this year’s meetup of the fraternity Mike Vorgang heads was an extra special one. In front of upwards of 50 alumni ranging back to Niskayuna’s 1996 team, the members of the 2015 Silver Warriors received their rings for winning this past June’s state championship — the first in program history.

Nick Testa, who was named the state championship game’s MVP and is now a freshman at Villanova University, said it was fitting for his squad to wait until Wednesday night’s setting to receive its spoils.

“I think it’s really symbolic that we got our rings the night we’re with all of the alumni because we couldn’t have done this without them,” Testa said. “Some of them, they’re the reason a lot of us even started playing lacrosse.”

That was a point Vorgang hammered home, too — that is, just minutes after his team beat West Genesee 13-10 in a state title game many alumni had flocked to see.

“They’re the reason why these guys were able to win,” Vorgang had said that day. “Our alumni is why we won a state championship. Without them, we don’t win.”

Now in its third year, the alumni get-together for the program has become a calendar date to circle for the crowd bearing “26 Win” on its gear. A clinic for area youngsters started the night; the ring ceremony served as prelude to the alumni game; and, a late-night dinner at LT’s Grill capped the night.

“The best part of it,” Vorgang said, “is all of it.”

Noah Fossner, a 2006 Niskayuna High School graduate who was a two-time All-American while playing for the Silver Warriors, was one of Wednesday night’s players. Home from his job as an assistant coach with the Boston University men’s lacrosse team, the 27-year old reflected that his time playing in high school had helped shape his future. For many program alumni, Fossner said, lacrosse has been an outlet through which paths to higher education became more clear.

“This program paved the way for a lot of us to go to college,” said Fossner, who played collegiately for the University of Delaware.

Now a college coach, Fossner is around the game on an everyday basis. For others, Wednesday night’s game was a chance to rekindle memories.

“Oldest guy on the field,” Greg Hafensteiner, a 1996 alumnus, said of himself. “If I can get out there and run around for a bit, I’ll be having fun.”

Earlier in the evening, Hafensteiner’s 8-year-old son Cody had participated in the night’s skills clinic.

“He’s probably going to be [Vorgang’s] first second-generation player,” Hafensteiner said.

Vorgang said the alumni game will still be around when those kids at Wednesday night’s clinic are ready to participate. In the decade until that time, the man who started Niskayuna’s program back in the early 1990s said the hope is for the event to grow each year.

“We won’t be done until every alumni, everyone who’s worn a jersey here, is at the alumni game,” Vorgang said.

One member of the Niskayuna lacrosse family not allowed to ever play in the game? Vorgang, a La Salle Institute graduate.

“I can’t — I’m not alumni,” Vorgang said, laughing. “I wanted to play this year, but I was told I couldn’t.”