By Chris Goldberg
Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 7/29/10

Great Valley rising senior midfielder Eric Gartner has made a verbal commitment to play Division I lacrosse at Villanova University.

Gartner scored 52 goals in 2010 and earned first-team Ches-Mont League honors for

Great Valley's Eric Gartner has committed to Villanova

the Patriots. A High Honors student who plays for the Duke’s Lacrosse Club, he also played in the Eastern Pennsylvania Scholastic Lacrosse Association Showcase and last fall made the Fab 40 team at the Philly Lacrosse Showcase.

Gartner plans to major in Comprehensive Science, a pre-med program.

“It’s a very good school academically and relatively small, but still decent in size,” Gartner said. “They have all good (sports) programs and I really liked (head) coach (Michael) Corrado and (top assistant) coach (Simon Connor).”

Villanova went 4-2 (10-4 overall) in the first season of Big East play this year, spending most of the year in the top 20.

Gartner was proud to be a part of the Duke’s Lacrosse Club’s fifth straight Champ Camp title last weekend.

“The team works well together and the whole team came together especially in the games when we needed everyone,” he said. “The toughest game was against GotSkillz (an 8-7 semifinal win). Our attack really stepped it up and Ryan Kilpatrick saved us on defense.”

Gartner said Great valley showed great improvement as the season progressed, winning a key last-season game over first-place Avon Grove and finishing with a victory over Sun Valley the next game.

“We lost six or seven games by one goal, but we did better toward the end of the season and we beat Avon Grove when they were in first place,” he said. “I thought we came together as the season went on.”

Tags: Great Valley, Villanova