Sean Greig is a lifetime football guy and an assistant coach for Robbinsville High School’s football team. But now, he’s a lacrosse guy, too.
Once he was named the Ravens’ fifth head boys’ lacrosse coach in the 10 years since the program’s inception this year, he immediately surrounded himself with good lacrosse minds.
He then sat down with his five seniors—Mike Sanguinetti, Jordan Sgro, Kyle Mayer, Cole Hildebrand and Ben Herrera—and laid things out as honestly as possible.
“I told them, ‘I can’t promise you anything’,” Greig said, “‘but if you give me a chance, we can do something special together.’”
They gave him that chance. He didn’t lie.
Fueled by talent, desire, work ethic and tragedy, the Ravens had a season like no other in school history. They established a new program mark for wins in finishing 13-4, had a school-record 11-game winning streak, reached the Mercer County Tournament finals for the first time and got the second round of the NJSIAA South Jersey Group I tournament before dropping a 9-8 decision to New Providence.
“I’m still a little disappointed about that loss, we were winning the whole game and they came back to beat us in the last 30 seconds to advance,” Greig said. “But that being said, just the resolve and tenacity of our players, our town, our community. It was more than wins and losses.”
But…
“As a coach, you take it hard when you have the chance to win a state game,” Greig said, “because you care about your kids.”
Greig showed just how much he cared from the very start, and he would be tested even further as the season went along.
As a teacher in the district for 11 years, Greig coached the freshman lacrosse team last year and got the varsity job by impressing upon the search committee he was in it for the long haul. Once hired in November, he brought on former Notre Dame High head coach Jerry Middlemiss as his defensive coordinator, well-respected recreation lacrosse coach Mike Langford as his defensive coordinator, and former Ravens’ 100-goal scorer John Demkovitz as his top assistant and head JV coach.
The staff met twice a week, every week in the off-season, and made it a point to bond with the players.
“I don’t think they had any continuity the last couple years but I felt like we could do this early on and just build a relationship and trust between players and coaches and get them further advanced,” Greig said. “In my mind I knew we could be a very formidable team. I didn’t realize we’d be 13-4, but I knew we’d have a chance to do some great things.”
Greig made an immediate impression the seniors.
“Coach Greig brought something in this program that no one has ever brought before,” said Mayer, a third-year varsity player. “He cared about us, and we knew that. Coach Greig wanted to make it clear that we were brothers. If one fell short, we would pick them up.”
The staff made the goal plain and simple—beat Howell on opening day. The Ravens had not won an opener in five years and, as a strong Shore Conference team, Howell provided a formidable first foe.
“I told them the only way we could beat Howell was get our butts in the weight room and start building relationships,” Greig said. “I knew if we could beat them, we could do good things. This year was teaching our kids how to win, how to believe and how to compete. I think you saw that happen when we beat Howell.”
That win, Mayer said, was “huge.”
That was followed by 12-8 and 9-8 losses to Mount Olive and Hopewell Valley, two of the top teams on the Ravens’ schedule.
“Mount Olive is a prominent North Jersey program,” Greig said. “We played them tight, and you knew right then we had something special.”
Next up was a win over Freehold Township, and, although no one suspected it at the time, Robbinsville would not lose again for over a month. Two games later came a signature win against Notre Dame, a perennial county power.
“We beat Notre Dame on Wednesday, then we come back that Friday on dead legs and beat Allentown,” Greig said. “We hadn’t beaten Allentown in three years.”
Yup, things were good. Until…
“All of a sudden,” Greig said, “the tragedy.”
The unthinkable tragedy, when Kyle Mayer’s dad, Robbinsville Schools superintendent Steve Mayer, was struck by a car and killed on the morning of April 19.
The entire community was in shock and mourning, and Greig tried to comfort his little corner of it by inviting players to his Robbinsville home and visiting their homes.
“There’s no handbook on that,” he said. “That morning, I grabbed the team, and for 48 hours we all just wanted to be there every way we could as a program. You want to do it the right way, you want to just be there for whatever it might be.”
And Robbinsville’s players did just that in growing up fast.
“It brought us together,” Greig continued. “You see the word ‘Family’ on our shirt. You saw resolve of young men. They were put in real-life situation.”
The team captains, Sanguinetti, Herrera, Aaron Smilow, Brandon Sankey and Bobby Stewart, quickly delivered a message to their coach.
“They said, ‘We’re not coming back until Kyle is with us,’” Greig said.
No one was about to argue, which set up one of the most bittersweet nights in Mercer County athletics history. On April 25, Robbinsville returned to the field for the first time for a home game under the lights with West Windsor-Plainsboro North. The football stadium was packed. Emotions were as high as they get.
Already leading up to the game, Greig had received calls from all the Colonial Valley Conference coaches, as well as lacrosse coaches from around the state lending their support.
Once the game began, cutting through the sadness of mourning for an unbelievably popular man, came some joy. Robbinsville took a 14-8 victory, and Kyle Mayer scored two goals.
Mayer said his life at the moment still doesn’t make sense, and understandably so. But he took the time to reflect on what the WW-P North game meant to him.
“To be honest, I was very nervous coming into that night, because all I wanted to do was make my dad proud,” he said. “But looking back on it, he is proud. He still is today. Scoring those two goals meant a lot to me because I want everyone to know that my family is going to get through this because of our faith, because of God. He’s one of the very few things that makes sense right now. Even when he doesn’t, he does. My brother told me a quote he heard in a song. ‘If God isn’t real, real isn’t.’ That night, I felt my dad alive in me and in everyone in the stands. And he loves me, and I love him.”
It was an incredible, emotionally-charged experience, felt by both teams.
“That was nothing like I’ve ever played in, in my entire life,” said WW-P North senior star Kyle Siegler. “I know when I first came down, I completely botched a shot. It was terrible because I had some kind of gut feeling. I never get that kind of feeling. All those people had us feeling a little different, a little emotional. It just felt good to kind of go out and do that for their community.”
Mayer acknowledged that his teammates and the sport of lacrosse were a big part of why he was able to return to the team and perform.
“When I fell and didn’t know what to do, my team was there for me and still are today,” said Mayer, who will play lacrosse at Messiah next year. “I felt weak at first, and angry. But my team welcomed me in practice, and lacrosse served as kind of a therapy for me. It was a place I could go to run around and hit kids and shoot as fast as I can. And my team made that special for me because they’ve had my back since day one.”
Greig still can’t get over how the evening played out.
“There’s no replacement for who we lost, but for that one night, and for a few hours, I think our town had a little bit of a smile and just kind of came together,” the coach said. “We used that momentum and that resolve, and I told the boys what we do now doesn’t matter, let’s go out and take it one game at a time and we’ll figure it out together.”
With that kind of bond, it became quickly apparent that Robbinsville was not going to suffer a letdown after the WW-P North win. The Ravens tore through the MCT to defeat Ewing by 20, followed by 8-7 and 11-9 wins over Allentown and Princeton in the quarterfinals and semifinals.
The winning streak came to an end in an 18-7 loss to Princeton Day School in the finals, but it was still a heck of a ride.
By reaching the finals, the team made a statement.
“It was amazing,” Greig said. “Even though we had a major tragedy and all the things we went through, we displayed the grit and resolve and mental toughness of each kid. We came up short, we’re not going to make excuses. They were a great team. But we had great support; 75 percent of the stands were filled with Robbinsville people. Even though we lost, it was a great thing.”
The Ravens followed with a state win over New Egypt before the loss to New Providence ended the season.
The team’s unquestioned superstar was Mike Sanguinetti, the CVC’s Player of the Year and an All-American who collected an eye-popping 66 goals and 35 assist for 101 points. Sanguinetti is headed for Rutgers after amassing 182 goals and 90 assists in his career.
But Greig, who was voted CVC Coach of the Year by his peers, said it would be unfair to list any one player over another and said the entire varsity deserved to be mentioned. Those players include Sgro, Mayer, Herrera, Sankey, Jake Veres, Corey Kale, triplets Jared, Taylor and Kyle Twamley, Stewart, Brian Wojton, Hildebrand, Dylan Scholl, Chris Heller, Smilow, Chris Curran, Ian Winn and goalies Derek Taylor and Matt Savoca.
“Those are the guys that pretty much played day in and day out,” Greig said. It was a total program. It didn’t hurt having Mike Sanguinetti, but what makes him special isn’t all the goals and stuff, it’s what he does off the field, it’s his work ethic. He cares more about winning. It’s what our team is all about.”
None of what happened on the field came as a surprise to Mayer.
“Approaching this season, I had big expectations for our team,” he said. “I knew what we were capable of doing, all we had to do was go do it. After losing to the No. 2 seed Madison last year in the second round of states, we realized we can play with anyone. Although we fell short in the second round once again, I’m so proud of all we’ve achieved this year as a team and a brotherhood.”
Greig is already excited thinking about next year, noting that 13 experienced juniors are returning. Mayer takes pride in the fact that this year’s team may have set the foundation.
“We established a lacrosse program,” Mayer said. “What this coaching staff and this team put in to this program is irreplaceable.”
In more ways than one.
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Robbinsville boys’ lacrosse goalie Derek Taylor snags a save during the Mercer County Tournament championship game against Princeton Day School May 12, 2016. The Ravens lost, 18-7. (Photo by Suzette J. Lucas.),
