YORK — As rising high school seniors prepare for college applications, tours and final decisions, 17-year-old AJ Birkle faces an additional challenge: get selected as one of about two dozen players for the U18 Boys’ USA Lacrosse National Team.
The lifetime lacrosse player from York County was recently selected as one of 50 U18 players nationwide to attend the National Team Development Program Combine training camp at Garrison Forrest School in Owings Mills, Maryland. He’ll join one other U18 boy from Virginia, Caleb Dymmel from Middlesex County.
The camp, which will last three days from July 29-31, acts as a pipeline to the U.S. National Team Program and consists of two boys and two girls teams divided into age groups (under 18 and under 16).
According to USA Lacrosse Magazine, around 1,600 high school athletes across 28 states and the District of Columbia competed to attend this year’s training camp, with about 150 boys and 180 girls selected to attend. Birkle, a defender, will compete under the NTDP combine U18 boys. The camp will test players on various lacrosse skills and drills.
Birkle has been training for this moment his entire life. A lacrosse player since preschool, he plays for Tabb High School and has spent five years with the Tidewater Patriots travel lacrosse team in Hampton Roads. Coached by Chris Swanenburg, the travel team has produced multiple players selected for the national training camp, including defensive player Andrew Knight and current Bridgewater College lacrosse player Killian Krapfl.
“We’re traveling all over. It’s been like that for a couple of years where we spend the summer just racking up miles and getting him in front of who you need to get him in front of. But he loves it; he has a passion for the game,” said Birkle’s mother, Jamie Doyle.
Doyle emphasized that Swanenburg, a former Division I coach at Radford University and All-Ivy League goaltender at Yale University, has been “instrumental” in Birkle’s success as a lacrosse player. The travel team, founded by Swanenburg in 2010, has allowed Birkle to play with individuals from around the Peninsula.
Swanenburg, who has watched many of his lacrosse players grow up, calls his program unique.
“We’ve been fortunate that we’ve got doors open for a lot of kids in our program in a variety of different ways,” he said. “Coming to play for the Patriots has given kids an opportunity to play alongside kids that are similarly motivated and talented, so that they get a little bit of a more competitive environment, pushed a little harder than they will be pushed in their home programs.”
Swanenburg offers words of wisdom to new and current lacrosse players who may be interested in playing at a higher level.
“The most important thing is to set a goal of getting better each day,” Swanenburg said. “You’re not getting an opportunity to play at the next level because of additional exposure, you’re getting the opportunity to play at the next level because of your ability.”
For Birkle, the sport “just clicked” when he was young, his mother said. Lacrosse isn’t just a sport, but a passion. When he’s not playing, he can be found stringing sticks, repairing helmets, coaching younger kids and drawing lines on the field.
Part of the appeal is the system of it all, he said.
“It’s very organized,” Birkle said. “It’s not all over the place, everything has its place, everyone has a certain job to do. And when everyone follows the system, it just makes it easy.”
This summer, while preparing to attend the national training camp, Birkle has been working as an EMT and a lifeguard and touring colleges. He’s hopeful that he will be able to continue his lacrosse journey within higher education and beyond. But if he doesn’t get selected for the national team, both he and his mother are just proud of the journey.
“Loving this last high school summer,” Birkle wrote on a lacrosse recruiting site, “and I’m playing like I have nothing to lose!”
Emma Henry, emma.henry@virginiamedia.com
