Please excuse Delaware midfielder Dan Deckelbaum if it seems like he has a chip on his shoulder this week.
The 6-foot, 205-pound Owings Mills native feels like he has something extra to prove as he helps lead Delaware (13-5) into its first appearance in the NCAA lacrosse Final Four when it faces Johns Hopkins (11-4) at noon Saturday at M&T Bank Stadium.
Deckelbaum came to Delaware four years ago as the all-time leading scorer in Owings Mills High history. But that wasn’t enough to garner any major attention from any of Maryland’s Division I colleges. Now, Deckelbaum feels like he can get the last laugh by helping lead his team to a national title.
“Being a local guy, I always enjoy playing against the other Maryland schools,” said Deckelbaum, whose father, Jack, played at Hopkins.
“Out of high school, I wasn’t recruited by any of the schools down here [including] Hopkins, UMBC, Maryland or Towson. So, it serves as some kind of extra motivation to play that much harder and really give it 110 percent at all times.”
Delaware’s roster has a distinct Maryland flavor with 11 players on it. Deckelbaum, who has 26 goals this season, is one of the team’s top scorers. He had three goals in Delaware’s quarterfinal victory over UMBC.
Other Maryland natives on Delaware?s roster are junior goalie Tommy Scherr (Mount St. Joseph) and senior midfielder Alex Smith (Boys’ Latin).
Scherr, whose cousin, Rob, played at Hopkins, has a .583 save percentage, while Smith is statistically the best face-off man in the country (.733 winning percentage).
For Scherr, this weekend will be special not only because of his family ties, but for how Delaware reached this point after losing five of six games in the middle of the season.
“We are playing more together now than we did the entire season,” Scherr said.
“We are working as a group, not just individuals. That is something that was definitely not there during our midseason slump.”
Deckelbaum added that getting a chance to possibly win a national title in his hometown would make this weekend even bigger for him.
“This has really been a storybook ending to my career,” he said. “I have lots of friends and family in the area that will all be there [this] weekend. I am just looking forward to getting out there and playing.”
