Lake Shore High School and Lakeview High School’s unified lacrosse team, formed in 2018, is a blooming community of about 17 members. One member, 17-year-old senior Jacob Moceri, is now bound to attend Tennesse Wesleyan University (TWU) thanks to his hard-earned scholarship for playing goalie.

So far, he is the only one to be offered a lacrosse scholarship on the team. He has been on Saint Clair Shores’ Unified team since his freshman year of high school, also the year of the formation of the team. 

Moceri’s passion for lacrosse has mostly been derived from his teammates and coaches there to support him. Moceri explains, “Playing with some of my closest friends has always been fun since freshman year. Just playing with them and how much teamwork we need just makes us very close as a team.”

To get to this point of receiving a scholarship, the first steps included lots of reaching out to those necessary. Moceri elaborates, “Over the summer, I was emailing coaches and colleges about my film (videos of his important highlight plays), and my achievements in lacrosse, and I got a couple emails back, one invited me down to TWU to do a practice and visit the college back in January.”

He continues, stating, “He liked how I played and he liked the film, obviously there is some stuff I can work on since I just started playing the sport, but he just liked my play and then offered me a scholarship.”

While having played for three years, Moceri has only been a goalie for two. Moceri notes, “I had two really good coaches that both played my position and taught me the game and taught me how to develop fast.” He reveals, “And I put a lot of work in; my first two years playing goalie, I practiced 20 hours a week outside our normal practice.” 

His lacrosse achievements are commendable, as he received MVP from his team, was voted as the 1st Team-All-County Goalie, and is a member of the 1st division All-Region Team. Coaches there to guide him along with lots of vigorous effort put into becoming the successful goalie he is today, which has paved Moceri’s path to earning this scholarship. 

While this scholarship is an exciting privilege, traveling to a different state to attend university is a challenge in itself. Moceri explains hardships to this are, “Probably leaving all my family and friends. And moving nine hours away to a place where I don’t really have anyone.” There is a lot of bravery when committing to this scholarship. 

Lacrosse is not a sport one hears a lot about if they are not a regular fan of it, but Moceri wants people unaware of the sport to know to “Give it a chance. It’s not a ‘rich white sport.’” Meaning this sport is for all people, dissolving the stigma of social and wealth class.

He also credits the sport’s history, saying, “It has a bunch of culture around it. It’s called ‘the medicine game.’ It was made by native Americans. Just the background behind it is so much fun to learn about it and it’s just a fun sport to play.”

While the lacrosse season plays out in Moceri’s senior year, this will not be the end of his career. His scholarship will be pursued soon at TWU, which is some proof that hard work really does pay off.