Men’s recruit: Spring-Ford’s Novotny chooses St. John’s as school’s 1st D1 player

By Chris Goldberg
Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 2/5/09

Spring-Ford senior attacker Tyler Novotny became the school’s first Division I player when he signed a letter of intent to play at St. John’s University.

Novotny, the Pioneer Athletic Conference Offensive Player of the Year in 2008, said location and academics made St. John’s appealing.

“I really liked the campus when I visited in July and it has a great business school,” he said. “That will kind of fit well for me academically. They have a lot of connections with Wall Street and that’s what I am looking at.”

“Plus, I was born in New York and I have a lot of family still in New York.”

Novotny has 142 goals and 49 assists in his career. In his sophomore year he scored 58 goals and led the Rams to the league title with five goals in the championship game.

Last year he scored 56 goals and helped Spring-Ford reach the finals, where they fell to Owen J. Roberts.

At St. John’s, Novotny plans to major in finance and is happy that the program will be moving into the Big East. He said a big boost was playing on the high-profile Duke’s Lacrosse Club with many players from the more established Philly programs.

“I got a lot of looks being with the Duke’s,” he said.

Meanwhile, he is hoping to lead the Rams back to the PAC-10 title.

“We have a young program, but there is a lot of talent coming up,” said Novotny. “We have the same expectations we have every year – to get right back to the championship game.”