Webb School of Knoxville Spartans lacrosse coach Rico Silvera on April 10, 2024, in Knoxville, Tenn. (Photo by Danny Parker)
BY DAVE LINK
Rico Silvera has made countless bus rides during his 21 seasons as the lacrosse coach at Webb School of Knoxville.
None matched Friday night’s ride home from Nolensville.
Silvera and the Spartans clinched their first state title in program history, beating Nashville’s Christ Presbyterian Academy 14-5 in the TSLA Division II-A/AA championship.
“Last night was the best bus ride I’ve ever taken,” said Silvera, who started the program in 2004 along with his assistant, Jonathan Johnson.
Johnson’s son, sophomore Baxter Johnson, became the Spartans’ star player this season with the 2023 graduation of older brother Hank, a goalie who’s now playing at SMU.
They’re like family to Silvera.
“(Baxter) and Hank were born after Jonathan started as my assistant,” Silvera said, “and as soon as they were out of diapers, they were riding the bus to every game.”
Webb (15-2) finished this season with a 10-game winning streak, and with Friday’s victory, avenged an overtime loss to CPA in last year’s state semifinals.
Silvera called that loss “incredibly painful.”
“We had a lead with two minutes left and ended up losing in overtime,” Silvera said. “I told the guys then, ‘Embrace the suck.’ We came into this season and we talked about as a staff, we looked at ‘What did we do wrong, what were we not prepared for in that game?’
“As a team, we sat down and we talked about our practice habits, that a lot of the errors that we made were from lazy practice habits and then trying to turn it up during the game and then trying to do more than what your job was.
“This year I told them near the end of the season, and the guys really bought into our principles and were on a tremendous roll, I told them, ‘Embrace the moment,’ and it was quite a show they put on.”
Silvera gives credit to his assistants, starting with Johnson and going down the list: Lee Pratt, Anthony Malcom, Chris White, and Clay Simmons.
“Those guys did a fantastic job,” Silvera said. “They take so much pressure off of me, and I can focus on what my job is.”
Webb’s victory over CPA was the first of four TSLA state championship games – two on Friday, two on Saturday — and they will be the last for that organization.
Silvera said TSLA is shutting down and the TSSAA will take over as the association over boys and girls lacrosse starting in the 2024-25 school year. Boys and girls lacrosse will be played in the spring.
“From here on in, it’s a fully sanctioned sport (by TSSAA),” Silvera said. “It will be a part of Spring Fling.”
NEW GOALIE, NEW STAR
Junior Jonah Sharp took over as Webb’s goalie with the departure of Hank Johnson.
“I sat down with Jonah at the beginning of the year and said, ‘Jonah, you’re not going to be Hank Johnson and you don’t have to be,’” Silvera said. “We had the best goalie in the state for five years, and for five years, teams with inferior goalies beat us.
“I said, ‘You have a job, and it’s to be the best player you can be, save over 50 percent, and let your teammates do what they need to do, and not take a burden on yourself that everything rests on your shoulders.’”
Sharp saved 54 percent during the season, and although making only two saves against CPA, made one that was huge.
“We had kept CPA out of their offensive end for the entire first quarter until there were 5 seconds left,” Silvera said, “and they threw the ball the length of the field and one of their guys caught the ball on the run, one-on-nobody on Jonah, and he shot low and Jonah went down and made the save. You could see the air just come out of CPA.”
Baxter Johnson and Bryce Hooker had three goals each for Webb in the championship.
Silvera doesn’t shy away from describing Baxter Johnson’s talents.
“Baxter’s my Michael Jordan,” Silvera said. “He is the first sophomore captain in the history of the school for lacrosse. He is the first guy to make all-state as an eighth grader in the history of the state.”
Silvera and his staff focus from the start of each season on how to maximize the impact of their players.
“In Baxter’s case, we wanted to surround him with guys he trusts, so he would make them better, and he did,” Silvera said.“When people went to him last year, he scored tons and tons of goals.
“This year I think he scored 52 goals and 42 assists. It was the devil’s choice. Send two guys at him and he throws the ball to an open man. Try to cover him with one man, and he blows you up. He is a generational talent.”
WINNING THE TITLE
Webb took a 2-0 lead in the first 2 minutes of Friday’s match, led 5-0 after one quarter, and had an 11-1 lead at the half.
Sharp’s save on CPA’s breakaway preserved the 5-0 lead in the first quarter.
Late in the half, Webb had a 10-0 lead with hopes of keeping a running clock starting the second half due to the 10-goal leadrule.
CPA scored a goal with about 2 minutes left in the half, cutting the deficit to nine, but Webb stretched the lead to 10 again before halftime on a goal by Sam Osborne.
Freshman Bo Caldwell got the assist.
“Bo didn’t play at all in the second half,” Silvera said, “but that assist he got under pressure which allowed us to go into the second half with running time, that just changed the way we played the game.
“Now we’re going to get long possessions (after halftime), we’re going to move it around. It’s 11-1 at the half and 14-5 (at the end). It’s pretty obvious what we did. But we’re here to win, and we don’t have a shot clock in high school.”
Silvera said his team wasn’t stalling in the second half, just being patient and controlling the ball.
“Our theory on offense is we run a principle-based offense,” he said. “We don’t run set plays. We give the kids guardrails and we let them play. … Our offense is designed to stress defenses until they break, and not overwhelm them.
“They played it brilliantly, which is amazing, because my entire attack, 94 percent of my goals this season came from sophomores or freshmen, and they played with a level of maturity because we trusted them.”
Silvera said he was “never more at peace” going into a big game than Friday because of the trust he had in his players and what they’d been coached to do.
He said the turning point in their season was an 11-7 loss to Father Ryan. The Spartans didn’t lose another game.
“They were a very good team, but they didn’t have better athletes,” Silvera said. “We said the reason we lost is because lacrosse rewards the teams that play the best lacrosse.
“We focused for the rest of the year, and they completely embraced our principles, which are very blue-collar principles, that we were going to play the very best lacrosse we could play, and we scored 150 goals and allowed 38 in the last 10 games of the season leading up to the championship.”
And that led to a great game Friday and an even better bus ride home.