Success in sports is hard to maintain. Very hard. Ask any current NFL coach not named Bill Belichick and they’ll tell you that to repeat as champions is one of the hardest things you can do. Apply the added complications that come with coaching a high school sports team, and soon you’re facing an uphill climb on a sheer marble cliff. Whether it be due to graduation, injuries, or players just simply losing interest, attrition of players is an issue faced by any high school team in the nation. Now consider trying to repeat as champions with a reloaded roster and a brand new first-time head coach. Welcome to the life of Southern Lehigh boys lacrosse.

“A team with success, making it to districts just last year, a team coming off of a championship is gonna have a hard time trying to defend that district title and that’s hard for a new coach to contend with,” junior midfielder Eli Price said.

Southern Lehigh concluded the 2016 season by winning the district championship with head coach Desi Gonzalez who had taken the Spartans to the championship game in his first year only to lose in triple overtime. Then while riding high off of a successful season, the Spartans were dealt a stupefying blow in the offseason when they learned Coach Gonzalez, who had taken the team to previously unprecedented heights, would be taking a new job as a coach at Bryn Athyn College. The Spartans suddenly had to deal with not only the loss of key players such as Southern Lehigh alumni Michael Nelson, Wyatt Noone, and Blake Levengood, but also their head coach.

And so the reloading process began with the hunt for a new coach, a search that turned up Ty Souders.

“It started out like any other process, we put it out in the newspapers and any applicable industry websites,” athletic director Chad Remaly said. “Initially it was just accumulating interest, accumulating applications, resumes and kind of evaluating them from there. So this process played out over the course of about four months.”

Souders isn’t your typical head coach that you’d bring in for a defending championship team. In fact, he is quite the opposite. His resume screams that he be the perfect man to turn around a team known across the league as a perennial dumpster fire that’s in need of a young spark, a complete 180 of what the Spartan lacrosse program should be looking for in a coach. It’s almost comical how much the resume of Ty Souders fits the definition of a new coach destined for a disaster team, the opposite of Southern Lehigh — young, limited coaching experience, success as a player, a local. However, in the mind of the Southern Lehigh lacrosse team, he is exactly what the team needed.

“We’re at a point where we’re coming off an extremely successful year, and having the district title, and beating your Parklands and Emmauses,” Remaly said. “I think the expectations are really high, so I think in this case it was important for us to find, not only the right fit on paper, but to find someone whose name will keep the excitement where it’s been at since last season ended.”

Souders grew up in the Lehigh Valley where he had played lacrosse since he was in seventh grade. He starred at Emmaus High School, where he was a four-year letter-winner and a captain during both his junior and senior seasons. Following a district championship season, Souders committed to play for Coach Kevin Cassese at Lehigh University, where he was a four-year starter and a three-time all-Patriot League selection.

Following his career at Lehigh, Souders was drafted to the Denver Outlaws of Major League Lacrosse with the 22nd overall pick. Upon the conclusion of his MLL career, Souders worked in finance before coming back to the Lehigh Valley to coach lacrosse and work in his father’s construction company. His primary coaching experience stems from being an assistant coach at Penn Charter and coaching club lacrosse at Club HHH. Coaching at Southern Lehigh will be the first endeavor for Souders as a head coach.

“It’s gonna be a learning experience for me, logistically, obviously there is a lot involved outside the Xs and Os, off the field, on the field,” Coach Souders said. “I’ll do the best I can. Will it be perfect? Absolutely not. But I think it will be a fun challenge that I look forward to taking on.”

Despite the new hire, life goes on in the world of Lehigh Valley lacrosse, and the Spartans have already begun to prepare for the 2017 spring season. Immediately upon his arrival, Coach Souders began to assemble his first coaching staff.

“Coach is looking for a balance. Him being more of a defensive-minded coach based on his background and where he played, he’s trying to balance that out with some offensive minds,” Remaly said. “He’s looking to bring coaches into the program that can really relate with the student-athletes.”

While his coaching staff is largely set, Souders will need to overall the Spartans’ roster from the losses of the 2016 senior class. Despite winning the district title last year, the Spartans lost many starters on both offense and defense that proved to be a large part of the Spartans’ success over the last two years.

For the 2017 season, a new group of seniors will be tasked with carrying the banner for Southern Lehigh lacrosse. Anchored by senior defenseman Andrew Malicki, the team will be built around a strong close defense unit and several returning pieces of offensive firepower, including sophomore attackman Ken Wolfe, who led the team in goals last year with 51. To add to the tumultuous challenge, for the first time in two seasons, the Spartans will have a new face in between the pipes after the graduation of goaltender Alex Amann.

“We’re going to look to identify who our best players are,” Souders said. “I think the unique thing about coaching high school is that you have to come up with schemes and sets that fit the best part of your team and coach to their strengths.”

Coach Souders believes that despite the losses, the team is in a position to add another title to the banner.

“You need to set your goals as high as possible,” he said. “Not to be to cliche, but if you aim high and miss by a little bit, you still had a pretty successful season.”