Notre Dame’s Tyler Roberto, a Hamilton resident, attacks the net this season. Roberto notched his 100th point this year.
By Jashvina Shah
Notre Dame lacrosse player Tyler Roberto took the field against Ewing on May 14 with a milestone ready to be achieved. He was just one away from the 100-point mark, and in the opening play of the Mercer County Tournament first-round matchup, he hit it. Roberto’s pass found teammate Matt Sellers, who scored the first of the game’s 19 goals for the Irish.
The assist was Roberto’s 100th point—a total he reached in three years with Notre Dame’s varsity squad. Roberto, a Hamilton resident, helped Notre Dame to a 19-1 win and county tournament run that ended in the semifinals. The squad also advanced to the state tournament quarterfinals.
The achievment is impressive in its own right, but even moreso for a midfielder to reach it in three years
“I think it’s a great goal, because as a [midfielder] you’re not primarily the main person in the offense,” Roberto said. “And I did it in three years. I was very excited and I was just getting the weight off my shoulders.”
At 5-foot-7 and 140 pounds, Roberto is small for a lacrosse player. But Notre Dame coach Michael Anderson said Roberto’s size hasn’t been his biggest challenge.
“It might be concepts,” Anderson said. “People haven’t put him in the best spots for him to succeed.”
Roberto said that his small frame may have made lacrosse difficult when he first started with the sport, but it hasn’t been an issue since, mostly because the midfielder made up for his height by adding muscle.
“I worked around it because being a smaller kid was a little difficult, but I had to make myself stronger,” Roberto said. “I just got big, and getting bigger kind of helped that I could be physical.”
Roberto, ineligible to play varsity his freshman year, joined the squad the following year as a sophomore. That season, he finished with 15 points. His total grew each year, and he scored 32 points on 16 goals and 16 assists his junior season.
“He really improved in the mental aspect of the game, understanding concepts and what we were trying to do with the team offense to try and get the best looks for other people. He really stood out as a leader on the offensive end of the field,” Anderson said.
Anderson, who just finished his first season coaching Notre Dame, said Roberto was receptive to coaching adjustments throughout the season.
“A lot of times we put into our scouting reports, ‘This goalie is good at saving high shots,’ and we would practice and coach the guys, specifically Tyler too, to shoot low, and he would do that,” Anderson said.
Next year, Roberto will play lacrosse at Delaware Valley University. He chose the school for its coach, Gary Mercadante, and its location.
“He’s a great guy and I really like him and I really like the way he said how he was going to coach,” Roberto said. “As a lacrosse player, he’s the definition of a coach you want.”
Delaware Valley University completed its inaugural season of Division III lacrosse this year.
“I know that [Roberto] is a good enough player that he’ll make adjustments to his next level of playing,” Anderson said.
Roberto was not the only Hamilton lacrosse player to reach the 100-point plateau this year. Hamilton West’s John Novak also hit the mark and led his team with 55 goals. Michael Carbone paced the Hornets in assists, with 27. Hamilton West coach Alex Chis-Luca said Carbone was the team’s most improved player.
“Last year he was a scorer for me when he was able to get the ball, but this year he emerged as more of a playmaker,” Chis-Luca said. “He got his goals here and there, but overall he became more of a playmaker. He had good vision, and was able to distribute the ball a lot more.”
The squad struggled this season, with a 2-7 league record, finishing 4-12 overall.
“We didn’t improve a whole lot. I think we actually won one less game this season,” Chis-Luca said. “I think we were in a lot of close games that we could have won, it just didn’t turn out the way we would’ve liked it to be.”
Despite only recording four wins this year, Hamilton West played in several close contests this season.
“They picked themselves up when they did get down,” Chis-Luca said. “They kept fighting and they realized that, even though the score was what it was, they weren’t all the time out of the games. And they continued to battle even though they were losing. They never gave up completely.”
One of those games was against Steinert, a 15-7 loss. The Spartan squad continued to grow this season and finished fourth in the CVC with an 8-2 league record. That record was good enough to earn Steinert a Patriot Division title, a first for a Hamilton school in lacrosse. Steinert lost, 20-1, against top-seeded Shawnee in the Group III tournament.
“Our game against Steinert, even though we lost 15-7, the game was back and forth,” Chis-Luca said. “It just got to a point where their skill level came out more towards the end of the game. We were back and forth throughout most of the game. They’d score a goal, we’d score a goal, they’d score two, we’d score one and on. It was a good rivalry and we came back a number of times. They just ended up having more depth than we did and ended up pulling out the game.”
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