Savoring a special season
Dave Earl stepped down after winning 6th state title last year to watch his son play
A quick peek is all it takes.
And St. Mary’s lacrosse goalie Logan Earl, a senior and first-year starter, knows exactly where to look.
In the stands, the 18-year-old UMBC commit finds reassurance and excitement in his proud father, Dave Earl.
The former Severna Park boys lacrosse coach, who guided the Falcons to six state championships in his seven years, stepped down after winning last year’s crown to take in his son’s senior season. A tough decision? Sure.
But the conclusion is undeniable: When your son is living out his childhood dream and cashing in on all the hard work he has put in, how can you miss a single second?
“It’s incredibly special,” Dave Earl said. “Logan has worked his entire life for this and my wife, Bridget, and I are just so proud of him. It means the world to us and to Logan that he’s earned this opportunity.”
Dave Earl played lacrosse in his younger days and was by his son’s side for much of the hard work
(and fun). Logan guesses he was 3 when the two first played catch in the yard. Like his dad, he started out playing midfield and on attack until the fateful day came when he was 9 and his club team needed a goalie.
“I remember standing there for the opening faceoff thinking,
‘What am I doing?’ Then the other team won the faceoff, passed it around a bit and the first shot hit me in the leg, so I made the save,” Logan said. “I was like, ‘Gosh that hurt!’ But we cleared it and then scored and I thought it was the best thing ever.”
Soon after, he was a fully invested goalie.
Lessons came from goalie coach Jack Manley. Shot after shot came out of his dad’s stick during more sessions in the yard. Countless hours of watching lacrosse games with his dad, who before his time at Severna Park coached the St. Mary’s JV team, came with detailed critiques.
One night, Logan went to the kitchen for a glass of water and a quick interaction with his dad about — you guessed it — their shared favorite subject turned into a conversation that lasted more than an hour.
“It ended up being midnight and I said, ‘Dad, I have school tomorrow!'” Logan said.
The car rides home from all the tournaments over the years brought the same back and forth. Bridget can attest.
“Being in the car with them and just listening to them rehash every second, every last detail,” she said. “I’m in the backseat thinking, ‘You two can recall a game from six weeks ago, but can’t remember to take out the trash every Monday?’ And they’re like ‘Yeah!'”
The strong ties the Earl family has with St. Mary’s lacrosse makes Logan’s starting position this year that much more special. Dave coached there from 2005 to 2012 and current goalie coach Dom Lamolinara (2010 grad, Syracuse) played for him. Tim Troutner (2015, High Point) babysat Logan and much of the time was spent teaching him the goalie position.
With St. Mary’s widely considered a goalie factory, those two are among a lengthy list to have gone on to play in Division I. Included are Chris Garrity, (1999, Penn State), Tillman Johnson (2000, Virginia) and Jason Carter (2004, Maryland), as well as more recent standouts such as Al Fyock (2018, Penn State) and Wes Schmidt (2021, Maryland).
Logan is next in line. He made varsity his sophomore year, but had to wait his turn with Zac Overend (2022, High Point) and Shea Kennedy (2023, Hofstra) the previous starters. A team captain, Logan pushed his predecessors the past two years and also learned valuable lessons to grow into the position.
As one of nine new starters for the Saints, who are 3-8 overall and 0-3 in Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference play, Logan has been vital with his lacrosse IQ and vocal leadership. He has 97 saves this season.
“Having a coach for a dad being around every day is just naturally going to help you understand the game better. So being able to see certain things, it’s like muscle memory for me at this point,” Logan said. “So I can remember dad showing me something on a whiteboard showing what an [opposing attack] may do and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, they did it.’ So it helps a lot.”
During his junior varsity playing days under Dave Earl, Lamolinara recalls the
scouting report printouts he would be asked to study to prepare for each opponent. It left a lasting impression.
“Coach Earl would get tricky. He would have a paragraph in the writeup of the other team’s defense and hidden in that paragraph, it would say, ‘Circle the bottom of page 4’ just to make sure you were reading it,” Lamolinara said. “So attention to detail he clearly had as a JV coach to put those together … that dedication to lacrosse and the success was the biggest takeaway I had under Coach Earl.”
That same attention to detail has been drilled into Logan. Having also played football at St. Mary’s, lining up at tight end and defensive end, he brings rare size and an edge to the goalie position.
“He brings a toughness from that football player perspective. He’s a solid guy, a thick guy. So from an X’s and O’s goalie coaching mentality, he’s different from what I’ve had in past,” Lamolinara said. “The one big X-factor that we were hoping to see and we saw really early on playing in the fall league was the leadership Logan brought. You can hear him barking from the other side of the field, that’s something we’re very happy to have.”
Dave Earl misses his Severna Park family. He misses watching his players grow from their freshman to senior years. He misses the competitiveness. And he misses all the winning.
But the chance to get to all of Logan’s games and not have to worry about leaving in the middle of it to go coach is a huge reward. After the game, they go grab a bite before heading home.
It’s cherished time.
“The past few years and not having him at games, I lived with it and it was fine. But there was always that feeling that I wish he could see me right now,” Logan said. “Now, if I may be having a tough stretch and see him sitting there, it kind of calms me down. It’s awesome.”