Noah Lehrfeld certainly wanted Reilly Cahill to be on the Lawrence High boys’ lacrosse team this season; but it was not to be when the junior suffered a season-ending injury during basketball. Cahill had 28 goals last year and was a huge distributor with 46 assists.
And while his loss certainly hurt the Cardinals, it forced Lehfreld to become a better player and he did everything possible to make that happen. Especially in dodging, which helped the senior turn into a major scoring threat.
“It was something I’ve always wanted to improve on but Reilly not being here helped us have new roles and dodging is one of those things that I picked up on,” Lehrfeld said. “We’re all dodging a little bit more. Reilly used to be the main dodger and he’d feed it to us. We had to do a little more work than we usually did.”
The result was a 44-goal outburst for Lehrfeld after he scored 30 with Reilly and Art Stubbs assisting him in 2021.
“Last year was my first year starting, I didn’t really know what to expect,” Noah said. “It was a great season out there with Reilly and Art. I didn’t ever think I’d put up 30 goals in a season. And getting over 40 this year without Reilly was definitely challenging.”
Stubbs, also a senior who will play football in college, has teamed on the lacrosse field with Lehrfeld since the two started with Lawrence Lacrosse in third grade. Stubbs had a team-high 32 goals with 12 assists last year, and collected 25 goals and a team-high 19 assists this year.
“Art is great,” Lehrfeld said. “We’ve been playing together forever. In our freshman year we started out together, now we’re up here. It’s just great knowing you have a guy that is reliable and you’re always on the same page with him.”
Their chemistry became more important with Cahill gone this season.
“Noah and Art have a pretty good connection,” coach Dan Brennan said. “They find each other. Art feeds him quite a bit. They’ve got a good connection. They both stepped up last year working with Reilly. Noah kind of stepped up and filled in to get some extra goals for us in Reilly’s absence.”
Much of that had to do with his improved ability to dodge and create his own goals.
“I think he’s been a little more aggressive going to the cage by himself,” Brennan continued. “Reilly was like our quarterback, he would dodge and draw the double teams and move the ball and Noah’s you’re prototypical lefty finisher.
“With Reilly hurt, I had to move a midfielder to the attack position and he hasn’t felt as comfortable as a distributor, I think he needs a little more time back there. So Noah became more comfortable as a dodger. A lot of those games where he had big numbers it’s usually one on one, just going to the cage and he knows the goalie’s spot and he’s just finding it and getting goals.”
After washing out in soccer and t-ball as a little kid, Lehfreld joined Lawrence Lacrosse when the program was fairly new. He did so at the suggestion of his friends, the Lynch family, who have since moved to Boston.
“They told me ‘Try it, you’ll love it,’ and they were right,” Noah recalled.
He was one of the team’s smaller players, which made things tough, and he was also a lefty being taught to play a right-hander’s game.
“Coaches teach you to play as a righty,” Lehrfeld said. “So you had to mirror all that and learn to play it all as a lefty.”
Noah never moved on to club lacrosse, as he wanted to keep his summers open to travel on family vacations.
“Lacrosse is great and I love it, but family and friends are also important,” said Lehrfeld, who has been to such places as Maine, Boston, Chicago, Michigan and South Carolina.
Despite only playing rec lacrosse, Noah was still someone Brennan knew about when he came in as a freshman.
“I’m a Lawrence resident and a Lawrence teacher, if I ‘m lucky enough I know some of them from a pretty young age,” the coach said. “I knew him as a lacrosse guy. It’s his number one sport, he loves it. I kind of knew there was probably something there, and we had a kid who loves lacrosse, loves putting in the time and really working on getting better. I knew Noah was gonna be a good solid player for us.
“It was a real pleasant surprise how well he played this year. I always knew he could be a solid player but this year he was awesome.”
One of Lehrfeld’s most noticeable qualities was his ability to score rapid-fire goals. He had three games of seven or more this year and those eruptions were impressive.
“Sometimes when he gets hot, he gets really hot, he just scores a lot of goals in bunches,” Brennan said. “When he kind of feels like he can get to the goalie he just goes on fire.”
Lehrfeld explained it by saying “It’s just all about momentum. When you start off the game and in the first quarter you tap in a couple of your first few shots, that feeling is always great. It’s that feeling where you know you can beat your defender at any point and get a goal when you need one.”
There is one thing Lehrfeld lacks that many scorers have. When Brennan was asked about his speed, the coach laughed.
“No,” he said. “He is not a speedy guy. He just has a knack for finding a way to get to his strong hand. All of his goals, if I had to guess, would be 95 percent with his left hand.”
Noah also chuckled when asked if he had speed.
“Not quite,” he said. “I used to run cross country, but not very well.”
Lehrfeld’s next stop is the University of Maryland, which is a powerhouse in both men’s and women’s lacrosse.
“I toured Maryland a few times, I just loved everything about it,” he said. “It was the perfect fit for me. I have family down there as well, my cousin’s also going to Maryland. It was at the top of my list when I was applying.”
But not to continue his lacrosse career.
“Their team down there is incredible, they’re in a league of their own,” he said. “I’ll do club or intramurals or something, just to keep the stick hot down there.”
He certainly had it hot during his final year of high school.
Noah Lehrfeld scored 44 goals for the LHS boys’ lacrosse team this year. (Photo by Rich Fisher.) ,
