By Chris Goldberg
Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 8/2/11
Haverford College rising senior long stick midfielder Paxton Moore has made a verbal commitment to play Division I lacrosse at the University of Michigan.
Moore helped the Fords finish 23-0 and claim the Inter-Ac League and Inter-Ac Invitational championships while finishing atop every national poll in 2011. He plays club lacrosse for HEADstrong.
Moore was a Gait Fab 40 pick at the Philly Showcase in 2009 and 2010 and also was selected to play in the EPSLA Showcase in 2010 and 2011.
Moore will play for a program that moves up this year to NCAA Division I status after being a power in the Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association. He will join Jeff Chu, a Conestoga grad who played a key role in 2011 as a freshman attackman.
Moore, who plans to major in business or engineering, was encouraged to consider Michigan by Haverford School coach John Nostrant.
“Coach Nostrant told me they were going Division I and encouraged me to take a look at it,” said Moore. “On my visit I loved it. Jeff Chu took me around and they saw me play in a couple recruiting tournaments.
“I think the sky is the limit for the program. The combination of athletics and academics will allow Michigan to compete with the schools like Virginia and Duke. I can’t imagine we won’t see them rise in the ranks in the next four years.”
Moore is the eighth Haverford School rising senior to commit to a Division I college. The others are: defensemen Connor and Warner Bailey and attackman Zach Rego (Georgetown), face-off specialist Will Gural and attackman Henry Blynn (Brown), midfielder/defenseman Will McNamara (Virginia) and midfielder Sam Rohr (Penn).
“Living up to the hype was definitely tough,” he said. “Once we started getting past the powers in the start of the season we realized we had the potential to go undefeated and we realized we could accomplish something special we’d have for the rest of our lives.”
Moore said the Fords are confident they can achieve great success again in 2012.
“At the Brine Shootout (last week) the seniors met and we looked at our eight committed D1 players and realized we have the potential to win the league again and be as good as we were last year,” he said. “We know we have to work hard in the off-season to accomplish that goal.”
Moore wished to thank Haverford School coaches Nostrant, mark Petrone, Travis Loving Paul O’Grady and Mike Morsell.
