SPARKS, Md. — Steven Brooks would have killed for this opportunity.
Growing up in Libertyville, Illinois, Brooks was the outlier as the kid who played lacrosse. He parlayed that passion into a successful career at Syracuse, where he led the Orange to an NCAA championship as the nation’s top midfielder in 2008.
But to wear the red, white and blue? That’s an entirely different experience.
“I dreamed of having this,” said Brooks, co-head coach of the USA Select U18 boys’ team that opened Brogden Cup play with a 10-2 victory over Team Ontario on Friday. “It makes me proud to see how much the game has truly grown, to allow those kids from nontraditional areas to be given an opportunity. They don’t get the experience like they do on the East Coast. I was once in their shoes dreaming of this opportunity to wear USA.”
Brooks competed for the U.S. Men’s Training Team for five years (2009-2014) and was a three-time MLL All-Star. He had his time. Now it’s up to people like Caleb Caldwell (pictured above) of Dallas to prove America has plenty of lacrosse talent beyond hotbeds like Maryland and New York.
“Don’t mess with Texas,” Caldwell said.
Caldwell, a senior at Dallas Jesuit who will play collegiately at VMI, set the tone for USA Select by winning 13 of 15 faceoffs. The U.S. led 4-0 after the first quarter and finished on a four-goal run.
It was a far cry from the previous six Brogden Cup meetings between the teams, each of which was decided by just one goal — including the only two losses USA Select has sustained in 56 Brogden Cup games (boys and girls) since USA Lacrosse started the National Team Development Program in 2019.
“We had a team meeting prior to coming to the fields. We gave them the lay of the land —what it means to wear USA across their chest,” Brooks said. “They came out swinging and never looked back.”
Midfielder Luke Mizro brought the heaviest hammer, scoring three unanswered goals to give USA Select a 6-1 lead it would never relinquish. The last two had nearly identical setups and finishes, with attackman Bobby Cusimano threading skip feeds to Mizro up top for low-to-high risers that drew woos from the crowd at USA Lacrosse’s Tierney Field.
An Auburn, N.Y., native and Army commit, Mizro sure looked comfortable representing his country. That was, until he untethered a backhanded shovel shot and wild underhand attempt that were well off their mark as USA Select tried to stretch its lead in the third quarter.
Coaches pulled Mizro aside afterward, urging him not to try to do too much.
“You get going and you think you can do everything,” Mizro said with a smile. “But then you can’t, and it’s your time to get off.”
USA Select’s faceoff dominance continued in the ensuing U16 matchup with Team Ontario, as AJ Yeung (Windham, N.H.) and Kaiden Brammer (Brier, Wash.) combined to go 12-for-16 in an 11-2 victory.
“It’s an honor like no other,” said Yeung, a 2026 recruit who committed to Princeton last month. “It’s a special experience to play with all these kids from different areas.”
Eight different players scored for the U.S., which used a zone ride to cause several turnovers, one of which resulted in a pick-six-style goal by long-stick midfielder Jake Ivancevic.
True to form, a Tennessee native was USA Select’s top scorer, as attackman PJ Kennedy finished with a hat trick. John Balsamo (ho hum, a Long Island guy) added two goals and two assists.
The USA Select teams were chosen over the summer following the NTDP National Combine. Hundreds more tried out for the program during regional trials in the spring. The 48 players competing for the U18 and U16 boys’ teams this weekend represent high schools from 21 states and the District of Columbia.
Both USA Select teams are back in action Friday night. They’ll play the U16 and U18 squads from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy after opening ceremonies.
