Sports: New England Black Wolves play home opener tonight
New England (2-0) readies to play NLL home opener tonight at Mohegan Sun Arena
Mohegan — When Andrew Kew, the New England Black Wolves' first-year lefty forward, was 10 years old, his grandparents had a shirt made for him: “My future lies in the NLL.”
Brett Manney, the Black Wolves' senior-most player and captain, was a prolific basketball player in high school who then went on to play lacrosse at the University of Delaware. Manney, a defender, recalls his friends back at Holy Ghost Prep outside of Philadelphia asking him how his college basketball career was going. He had to remind them it was lacrosse.
Last week, the 23-year-old Kew and Manney, 34, attended a media luncheon at Mohegan Sun.
Kew has played two games in the National Lacrosse League — the Wolves are off to a 2-0 start — Manney 171.
And yet their focus, their love for the game, is in line with one another as the Black Wolves begin the home portion of their schedule at 7:30 tonight at Mohegan Sun Arena, facing the expansion team New York Riptide.
“Extremely excited,” said Kew of the home opener. “The Mohegan Sun's a really cool place. It's unbelievable here. It's a great group of guys. Obviously with the 2-0 start, we've been able to jell pretty quick after the preseason, just kind of learning each other's tendencies.”
“When you look at those (first) two games and see they're on the road, you know it's going to be an uphill battle,” Manney said. “There's such a home-field advantage in this league. The boards are different. The floor is different. We're not content, we could do things a little bit better, but to play in front of 12,000 or 13,000 (on the road), you couldn't ask for a better start. We've got to keep rolling.”
Righty Callum Crawford leads New England in scoring with six goals and seven assists for 13 points, with Kew, selected third in this year's NLL Entry Draft out of the University of Tampa, coming in second with three goals and seven assists for 10 points. Joe Resetarits has nine points (3 goals, 6 assists) and Reilly O'Connor and Stephan
Leblanc each have two goals and three assists for five points.
Meanwhile, the defense has been a deciding factor in both victories, with Manney picking up nine loose balls and causing two turnovers and goalie Doug Jamieson racking up 89 saves in two games with a save percentage of .848.
The Black Wolves, bidding for their fifth straight playoff berth, all under head coach Glenn Clark, are one of only three teams to start the season 2-0, with back-to-back 12-8 wins Dec. 7 at Toronto and Dec. 14 at Saskatchewan. The Riptide, in their first season, are 0-2, having been outscored 26-14 thus far.
Kew, a 6-foot-3, 200-pounder from Oakville, Ontario, had a group of about 70 friends and family members who came to see him play the Wolves' opener at Toronto. That included his parents, Darin (celebrating his birthday that day) and Charlene, who were also planning to attend the home opener. Kew also plays for the Major League Lacrosse franchise Chesapeake Bayhawks during the summer.
“It was my dream. It was my dream forever,” Kew said of playing in the NLL. “You sort of learn in the summer. You've already had a summer of pro lacrosse; that helps calm the nerves a little bit. There's just a lot of hype around the (NLL) draft. You never know what's going to happen.”
What happened was Black Wolves general manager Rich Lisk's version of a dream come true.
Kew, who it was originally predicted would be chosen first in the draft, dropped to third, where New England quickly scooped him up. Lisk said a lot of Kew's “little intricacies” have helped spread the scoring out among the entire forward line, with defenders having to spread themselves thinner than in the past.
“That's all set up because of what he can do,” Lisk said. “If someone asked, ‘What do you need to make this team roll?' You would say, ‘A lefty like him.' We never had any lefty who could do all of that.”
Kew still lives in Tampa, where he is attempting to break into the college coaching ranks.
Manney, meanwhile, makes his way to Connecticut each week from his home in Philadelphia, where he formerly played for the Philadelphia Wings, who became the Black Wolves prior to the 2015 season. Manney is also 6-foot-3 and weighs in at 220 pounds. He was a member of the U.S. team which won the bronze medal in September at the World Indoor Lacrosse Championship in British Columbia.
“I think we're happy,” Manney said of the Black Wolves defense, which is also led by Mackenzie Mitchell and Joe Nardella, each with three forced turnovers. “I don't think we're thrilled. The last thing we want to think is we're God's gift to Earth after two games. We've done a good job. Dougie's a big part of that.”
Manney also said the team is ready for a home game. Mohegan Sun Arena has developed its own personality within the NLL, including the Wolves' fans trademark howl.
Said Manney: “It's been like seven months since we had a game here.” v.fulkerson@theday.com