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2017 College Lacrosse All Traditional Team

Welcome to the 2017 College Lacrosse All Traditional Team!

To make this team you need to A) play D1 lacrosse, B) play some minutes for your team, and C) use a traditionally strung stick for all, or at least part, of the 2017 season!

It’s also important that I actually know that you’re doing this, but that’s my issue to worry about. I tweet about it constantly.

This team is simple and it showcases the ever-diminishing number of guys who use leather on a D1 field. There aren’t many of them, but there are a few, and they deserve some recognition!

I didn’t use traditional in college because I couldn’t string it back then, and I didn’t have the patience to maintain someone else’s work. Plus I played defense, and went through 6-10 heads a year at minimum because I was a complete and utter hack. Even with sticks breaking way less now, I understand why so few players choose to use a traditionally strung head these days. It still makes sense to use mesh… But that doesn’t mean that some guys don’t put in the extra effort!

So here they are… organized by how big of a role they play a role for their team, AND by how much they use traditional sticks. Use a trad all season and play in every game? You’ve got a good chance at the first team. Play a lot but only use a trad in a couple games? That’s likely good for second or third team. Don’t play much but still find a way to use a trad at some point? It’s good for HM.

2017 College Lacrosse All Traditional Team

First Team

Shack Stanwick – Johns Hopkins – Attack – Stanwick, like his elder brothers before him uses a custom pita pocket strung up by his father. I believe Mr. Stanwick has strung all of his 8 D1 lacrosse playing kids’ sticks, and Shack is finishing up the family tradition of traditional at Hop as the youngest. He’s a stud player, and has always used traditional. They are like the first family of the All Traditional Team. Shack used traditional in every game, on every shift, and he’s a stud. Traditional Team LOCK.

John Sexton – Notre Dame – LSMSexton uses a brown leather and bootlace traditional in his stick. The Junior is a loose ball machine, All-American, and another New Englander, coming out of Lincoln-Sudbury HS in Massachusetts. Sexton has a motor that just goes, and isn’t afraid to make some moves in the offensive end. I’ve talked with him before and he doesn’t understand why more people don’t use trad sticks. Neither do I really, other than the reasons I laid out above in the intro… but still! Sexton is also a great young man of character, who gives back to the lacrosse community and he used leather for every minute this year, as far as I can tell. Sexton was another lock for All Traditional Team honors on the 1st team.

syracuse notre dame lacrosse burning april lacrosse
Photo Credit: Ryan Conwell

Second Team

Cal Paduda – Syracuse – FO/Midfield – Paduda sees a lot of times on the wings for the Orange, takes some draws and does some dirty work for Cuse. He was using a larger diamond pita pocket with all white leather and string. Paduda is a redshirt Senior, who went to high school in CT at Loomis-Chaffee, and has been on this list before. Repeat customers are always nice.

Matthew Giampetroni – Duke – Midfield – I first saw Giampetroni rocking a brown leather traditional pocket against Jacksonville, in the rain! Maybe he was using it before, but using it in the rain is a serious bonus element. I like it! Giampetroni is a Junior out of Michigan who attended Cranbrook for high school and while he wasn’t one of the main fixtures on Duke’s team this year, he did log some solid minutes and used traditional in the rain. That’s second team material in my book!

Plus he scored a sweet game winner in HS using traditional, so he’s a long-time user. Love it!

Third Team

Jason Brewster – UMBC – LSM/FO – The Sophomore from San Diego uses mesh and he uses traditional. Mesh more than trad it seems, but against Hopkins he whipped out a sweet all white traditional number on his longpole, and all were impressed. Brewster played in all 14 games as a freshman for UMBC, takes face offs, and plays LSM. Kind of cool to see two face-off taking players on the list in Brewster and Paduda! Thanks to D_H on Twitter for finding this one!

Honorable Mention

David Dilts – Syracuse – D – Thanks to Evan Grossman for the find here! Dilts didn’t play a lot of minutes this year, if any, but Evan said he’s using traditional at least part of the time, so he’s on the list, even if he’s only standing on the sideline for now. That’s just how few traditional users there are out there.

If I missed someone, LET ME KNOW on Twitter! Hit me up @ConnorWilsonLAS and I’ll add them in, but I need proof – like a link to a game photo from THIS YEAR or a video, or something along those lines.