By Matt Chandik
Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 4/9/17
Nick Yi and Chad Allison have been through it all at Shipley.
The senior tandem has been teaming up to fill up the stat sheet for four years since both of them have been starting since their freshman campaigns. In that time, they’ve experienced the highs of a 15-win season in 2015, the lows of a 7-13 season in 2013 and everything in between.
Yi, a Cleveland State signee, and Allison, a Widener commit, are the cornerstones of a strong Gators senior class. Four seniors start on offense for Mark Duncan’s outfit, and it’s no coincidence that Shipley has come roaring out of the gates in 2017. Saturday, the host Gators rolled past Roman Catholic, 18-4, at the Checking for Cancer Invitational for their fifth straight win. In that stretch, Shipley has scored 78 goals, or 15.6 per game.
“I think the secret for us is the closeness of our team,” said Allison, who fired home four goals and set up two others. “We move the ball well on offense and we do well in transition because we’ve been playing together for a while.
“We all started as freshmen now and we worked our way up together, and now that that helps the big group of freshmen that we currently have.”
That infusion of fresh blood has certainly helped. Against the Cahillites (0-4), it was freshman Luke Grayum who erupted with a five-goal, three-assist masterpiece, while fellow 2020 Henry Reed winning 14 of 17 faceoffs and collecting 10 ground balls. These are great games to bring those youngsters along, too.
“It’s great to be able to get the starters a bit of a rest and to be able to put in a kid who can play well,” Allison explained. “We have a lot more depth on our team this year. We used to have one or two solid lines, but now we have about three or four lines who can play.”
Ultimately, though, Shipley’s long-term success lays in the hands of its grizzled senior class.
“A lot of it is due to teamwork and chemistry,” said Yi, who collected three goals and three assists against Roman. “I see a lot of our offense in that (15-win) team from two years ago, but we can be even better. There’s a lot more talent in the younger group.”
Make no mistake about it, though. The Gators know exactly what they want. They won five straight Friends Schools League championships before the class of 2017 entered high school and don’t have one to show since then. Rival Academy of the New Church is again considered the favorite of the FSL and has a 2-0 mark over Inter-Ac schools this year. Defeats at the Lions’ hands in the past two FSL title games linger with the Gators, and they’ve proven to be the team’s biggest motivation.
“The success that ANC is having has had a huge impact on us,” Yi said. “It’s one of our biggest goals to beat them this year and it’s driving us in the offseason. We’re looking for that Friends League championship.”
“ANC beating us in the past couple years has added so much fuel for us,” Allison added. “It’s rough, especially since Shipley won five Friends League titles before I came in. We really want to leave with a championship and we really push that on the team.”
