Three-peats are reserved for the best athletes and teams in history, groups that etch themselves in sports lore by winning three consecutive championships. It’s difficult enough to reach that mountaintop, but even harder to remain there.
Harford Community College men’s lacrosse joined that exclusive company on Sunday with an imposing 20-10 win over Nassau (New York) in the NJCAA national championship game, and perhaps took the most daunting path to get there of a team at any level that’s accomplished this feat.
Junior college players have just two seasons of eligibility. Roster turnover is inevitable — no players on this year’s team were around for the first title in 2023. The lone constant is 11th-year coach Aaron Verardi and his staff. He’s been a stabilizer at a level where stability is hard to attain and turned the rural Harford County school into the nation’s premier program.
“It’s awesome. Just thinking about when we started, ” Verardi said as his voice tailed off. “It definitely makes me emotional just thinking about it.”
Sunday was a rematch of the 2023 title game that HCC won to kick off its run, and the afternoon capped a historic 2025 campaign. HCC never left the No. 1 spot in the junior college rankings all season. Going further back, the Fighting Owls have now reached four of the past five NJCAA championship games and been to at least the national semifinal for seven consecutive years.
Players who led Sunday’s victory weren’t around for most of that stretch, the first three-peat at the NJCAA level since Onondaga (New York) did it from 2017 to 2019. But it is why they’re here.
“Obviously, there are guys that came before us. We’re not the first guys,” said sophomore Ryan Wesner, who scored four goals. “But we got two here together, and we’re real proud of it. We knew that we would have a target on our back this year. But, I mean, it just makes it more fun for us.”
“The infrastructure is here,” Verardi said. “We have a blueprint for how things should work, starting at the beginning of the year until now, and that’s what we’re following. We’re just trying to make it a little bit better every year.”
Verardi’s experience in these moments was evident early. Nassau scored the game’s first three goals to put HCC in an early hole — unfamiliar territory for a team that hasn’t lost in more than a year and won its three postseason games by a margin of more than 10 goals per game. So the coach called a timeout to settle his group.
“Props to Coach V,” said sophomore Liam Forsyth, who scored a team-high seven goals. “He does a good job of assembling all the pieces. It’s just our part as players to communicate, love one another, and just play our game.”
The Fighting Owls scored the next six goals and never trailed again. They took their first lead six minutes after the whistle and entered the second quarter up 6-3. Forsyth tallied three of his team’s four scores in an even second period to give HCC a 10-6 lead at halftime. This better resembled the team the Fighting Owls were for the past two months.
The second half was a continuation of how the first ended. HCC exploded for six goals in the third quarter to take a commanding 16-8 advantage into the final 15 minutes. Forsyth scored twice more as the Fighting Owls put the finishing touches on a double-digit victory.
“Literally starting tomorrow, we’re going to be thinking about, how do we make the best team that we possibly can going into next year?” Verardi said.
Forsyth, Wesner and the rest of the team’s sophomores could be playing at the four-year level next spring. Verardi, who estimates 90% of his second-year players find homes at the NCAA level when their stays with HCC end, said after the game that one player is already committed. That figure will be in his pitch to bring in the next class of Fighting Owls who missed out on a coveted Division I offer but want a shot at extending this run.
Verardi hung around the field for nearly another hour, maneuvering around scattered helmets and sticks that were tossed in celebration to talk to nearly every person in attendance in the shadow of a scoreboard that told the story of a dominant win. He was the last to leave the field. Finally, after every piece of equipment was put away and the scoreboard went blank, he threw his backpack straps over his shoulder and left. There’s work to be done.
Have a news tip? Contact Taylor Lyons at tlyons@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/TaylorJLyons.
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