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April 5, 2009 E-MAIL PRINT

Rhody standout middie Sternberg stays grounded

by Kevin Henkin/

Ben Sternberg loves baseball. So much so, in fact, that he nearly skipped lacrosse tryouts during his freshman year to pick up a baseball mitt instead. It was an agonizing decision at the time, but not one that he regrets in retrospect.

That year, Sternberg was the only freshman to make the varsity cut for the North Kingstown (R.I.) High School lacrosse team. Two years later, he was the only junior — among the four players who were named in the state of Rhode Island — to be recognized with All-America honors. Along with fellow All-American Greg Fallon, Sternberg also led his North Kingstown team to a state championship last season. For the regular season, the midfielder notched 21 goals and 12 assists, and he scored three goals in the state championship game.

This year, Sternberg is back for his final high school season with hopes of defending that state title. He knows it will be an uphill battle, especially with the graduation of Fallon and the departure of longtime coach and mentor John Holmes, who was succeeded by longtime assistant coach Chris Callahan.

Regarding the challenge of the title defense, Sternberg is confident both in his own abilities and in those of his teammates.

“We have a good group of young guys,” he said, “and I think that’s really important because they’re the ones who are the most motivated. There’s also a good group of seniors coming back too to lead them.”

Sternberg also said that Callahan’s tenure under Holmes will help to ease the coaching transition considerably.

“As much of a blow as it’s been with losing Coach Holmes, there isn’t a better person to ease the transition and take his spot than Coach Callahan,” Sternberg said. “He is an Army colonel, has great motivation and really pushes us to our limits. I am very excited this year to be under his command, no pun intended.”

In return, Callahan has high praise for his best player.

“Ben’s a pretty special athlete on a broad spectrum of levels,” Callahan said. “Physically, he’s got tremendous presence. He’s very fast. He’s very strong. He’s got some obvious physical gifts, but if there was a point that I wanted to emphasize, it’s that he’s the hardest worker on the team. He has been that way for the past four years.

“My expectations of him are pretty simple,” Callahan added. “That is for Ben to be the student-athlete that I know he can be. I certainly expect a great deal of selfless play from him because he’ll be shadowed or quickly doubled all the time, and teams are going to challenge us straight away by trying to take Ben out of the picture.”

Although Sternberg features a number of strengths as a player, Callahan highlights his midfielder’s ability to shoot while moving with the ball.

“He’s one of the few kids I’ve seen recently at the high school level who can truly shoot with a tremendous amount of velocity on the run. He can really pepper the ball while he’s moving forward toward the cage. It’s really pretty impressive. A lot of kids, to get the kind of velocity that Ben can deliver, they have to really set their feet and sort of stop what they’re doing in order to develop the torque through their legs.”

Sternberg’s primary point of pride, however, is centered on his fanatical pursuit of ground balls.

“My father taught me that when there’s a ground ball, it’s not the biggest person or the fastest or the strongest who gets it. It’s the person who wants it the most, so I always have that in my head.”

The midfielder obviously has gotten the message. Sternberg’s 184 ground balls last season established a state record.

Although Sternberg remains focused on the task at hand this season, he already has established his next destination as a player beyond high school. Following graduation this spring, he will head to nearby Bryant University to play for coach Mike Pressler. In doing so, he will become the first player from his high school to go on to compete for a Division 1 college lacrosse program. It’s an accomplishment in which he takes enormous pride, but he nonetheless recognizes the vast amount of work still required to succeed at the next level.

On his preparations for what lays ahead, Sternberg said: “You can never shoot enough. You can never lift enough. You can never run enough. I have a pretty good workout regimen that I like to stick to, so I’ll just fall on that and wait to hear from Coach Pressler and do whatever it is he wants me to do.”

Sternberg first showed up on Pressler’s radar screen a couple of years ago, when the young player attended a summer lacrosse camp held at Bryant. He also was heavily encouraged to play for Pressler by his former coach.

“John Holmes told me then that anyone would be crazy not to take advantage of the ex-Duke lacrosse coach being here in Rhode Island,” Sternberg recalled.

On Pressler’s end, there was no convincing needed to pursue Sternberg for the Bryant program.

Said Pressler: “We always thought that if we could recruit the best player in Rhode Island and keep him home, that would be something that we sure would be excited about. Ben, without question, I thought was the best player in the state a year ago, and to get him to come to Bryant was terrific. He’s an exceptional athlete. He’s got a motor that never quits. He had a lot of options at a lot of places and we’re very thrilled that he decided to become a [Bryant] Bulldog.”

Callahan has little doubt that Sternberg will succeed in college — and beyond.

Said Callahan: “I think Ben is going to be very successful in his college career, but more importantly I think he’s going to be very successful as a young man growing up and doing whatever he decides to do when he graduates.”