The High Point University men's lacrosse program is less than a year away from its official start as HPU's 16th intercollegiate sport. Though the team won't officially begin play until the spring of 2013, head coach Jon Torpey, his staff and 19 players have been hard at work hoping to get a jump start on the process.

Torpey welcomed 19 student-athletes to campus in 2010-11. The team practiced each day and played a schedule of collegiate club teams, post-collegiate club teams and pro teams during the spring. Working with a small group allowed the coaches to give a lot of individual instruction and it allowed the players to understand the system and the expectations of the coaching staff without the pressure of games.

“It was a really good year for us,” Torpey said. “We did a lot of individual skill development stuff with the guys. Not having a full team, we got a chance to take a lot of the guys from point A to point B and hone in on some things we wouldn't have been able to do during a regular spring. The advancements our guys made were tremendous.”

Torpey put together a difficult slate of exhibition games during the spring to challenge his players and help develop them as a team. The Panthers played games against local club teams such as Clemson, Wake Forest and Virginia Tech. They also had a trip up to Maryland during Spring Break in which they got to test themselves against some top-tier post-collegiate club teams.

“I thought spring break was huge for us,” Torpey said. “We got a chance to play against some very good post-collegiate club teams. The guys did a tremendous job as I felt like we were clicking on all cylinders offensively and defensively we had solid schemes that our guys did a good job executing. Another one of the bright spots for me was watching our guys develop over the course of the year. Seeing guys who came in with little or no credentials turn into guys who were beating some top notch players was just great.”

The team has worked to get a head start in many areas not just on the field, working hard to achieve in the classroom and committing a large amount of time to local community service. Coach Torpey's commitment to his players' academic success paid off as the team finished with the highest GPA among High Point's men's teams in 2011-12.

“We had pretty high goals at the beginning of the season. We put together a 100-page player manual with our expectations of what we wanted the team to do. They got to know their professors, they did their work and they went to class. Our team GPA is one of the highest team GPAs of any team I have been around. We talked about how our national championship this year was having one of the top GPAs in the department and our guys far exceeded expectations.”

In addition to the team's academic success, the Panthers made a big impact in the High Point community, committing time to various service projects throughout the year. The team was part of Big Brothers Big Sisters, participated in the Salvation Army's Stuff the Stocking Campaign, took part in a local Run for Autism and also worked with the local YWCA.

“We wanted these guys to do something they were passionate about,” Torpey said. “We will continue to do a ton of work in the community going forward and look for things to do that go above and beyond. We have formed some great partnerships and I have heard incredible things about the guys. They are a great group and selfishly we want to showcase them to as many people as possible.”

The 19 returners will be joined by a talented incoming recruiting class in 2013 to comprise the 45 players that will take the field as High Point's inaugural team. The returners will be counted on to guide the newcomers and serve as team leaders. Many of the returning players embraced that responsibility, making sure to take the incoming players under their wings as they visited campus during the two Presidential Scholar weekends in the spring.

“I think that the foundation has been laid between our returners and our incoming recruits,” Torpey said. “The returning players already feel like there is a bond with the 2012 class. Because of that the incoming recruits know what is expected and how we run things. There is no gray area with this program, we are who we are. We do the right things off the field and expect a lot out of these guys.”

As the men's lacrosse program approaches its first official season in 2013, Torpey believes that the early work that they put in this year will allow the team to hit the ground running.

“I think we will still have some bumps, we have a lot of young guys and still haven't played a Div. I game,” Torpey said. “That said, having a year where the guys got to learn what our fundamentals are, the system that we will run and their expectations off the field will be very important especially from a leadership perspective. The fact that this group has pretty much stayed intact and grown together should create a strong foundation for what we want to build.”