An old flame rekindled: NCAA-bound Plymouth State is happy Hawkom returned to a sport he once loved
May 9—HOLDING a lacrosse stick for the first time in about four years, Alex Hawkom spent three hours one afternoon last summer trying to score on longtime friend Owen McNichols.
"We were actually joking about it the other day," said Hawkom, remembering that day at Manchester West's football field. "I was like, 'I don't think I scored a single goal on you that entire day."
But it didn't take long for the former Division I college quarterback to relearn the other sport he played at Manchester Central.
Hawkom, a graduate student midfielder, owns the second-most goals (31) and third-most points (39) on the Plymouth State University men's lacrosse team, which earned its first NCAA Division III tournament berth this spring.
McNichols, Hawkom's teammate at Central and friend since they were about 3 years old, is Plymouth State's senior starting goalkeeper.
The Panthers (15-4), who won their first Little East Conference title, will play No. 3 ranked St. Lawrence University (14-3) at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, in a second-round game on Saturday at noon.
"Owen McNichols, he came to me and he said, 'Hey, my buddy Alex is thinking about doing a fifth year for lacrosse,' and that's kind of how it started," fifth-year PSU lacrosse coach Mike Wilus said. "(Alex) was looking to get his master's degree and what kind of coach wouldn't take a 6-foot-2, 6-foot-3, 220-pound athlete?"
Hawkom, an All-LEC Second Team selection, started his college athletic career as a scholarship quarterback at Central Connecticut State University, where he played sparingly.
Meanwhile, he missed lacrosse. He attended Central Connecticut women's games, then, last spring, took in PSU's 9-8 regular-season-finale win over rival Keene State.
Hawkom earned his undergraduate degree in finance at Central Connecticut and is on track to earn his Master of Business Administration at PSU in August. (He has a job lined up in Connecticut).
While Hawkom considered schools for his graduate work, McNichols helped recruit him to Plymouth State. For lacrosse, that is.
"Thinking about it, I was like, 'There's no way I could play for another team where I'd be scoring on him. He's like my brother,'" Hawkom said. "After so many years of him being my goalie, I couldn't betray him like that."
Hawkom said he remembers "being very, very tired" after Plymouth State's first practice.
Playing midfield is different than playing quarterback, he said.
"I was kind of expecting myself to have the same stamina I had in high school and I definitely did not at first," Hawkom said.
The stick skills and lacrosse IQ took a while to come back. Through help from his coaches and teammates and shooting sessions on McNichols, the LEC Goalie of the Year, Hawkom said he felt confident in his abilities once the season started.
Hawkom scored twice in his Panthers debut, a 10-6 victory at the University of New England on Feb. 25. That began his season-long streak of recording at least one point in every game.
McNichols, who played youth lacrosse with Hawkom in the Manchester Police Athletic League, was surprised by how quickly his friend picked the sport back up.
"I know he's a great athlete and all but not picking up a stick in 4-5 years ... it takes a lot of work to get back to the skill you were at before," McNichols said.
Because opponents weren't familiar with Hawkom early in the season, they often put a short-stick defenseman on him, said Wilus, the LEC Coach of the Year each of the past two seasons.
"He's just a matchup nightmare for other teams," Wilus said. "There's no short stick that we played this year that could cover him (Hawkom) one-on-one. He created a lot of offense for us just by getting downhill and dodging hard and using his body to his advantage.
"As the year went on, he started getting a (long) pole (defender) but we weren't afraid to let him attack anyone."
Hawkom credited his scoring to Plymouth State's scheme, which plays to the team's athleticism, and the offense having multiple scoring threats. Five Panthers have scored at least 24 goals, led by senior attackman and Waterville Valley resident Crosby Fay (51 goals), an All-LEC First Team selection.
"I think the reason why I was able to have some success was because you couldn't focus solely on one person," Hawkom said, "because we had so many good players that (if) you're going to focus on one person, another guy's going to make you pay."
Dissecting film and being able to critique himself, Hawkom said, have been the most useful skills from his football days. Wilus said Hawkom's leadership and maturity have also carried over.
Hawkom said the Panthers already had great leaders when he joined, but he tries to lead by example and show that he is an unselfish, hardworking teammate.
"From Day 1, it was almost like he was a leader before the guys even knew him," Wilus said. "Just the way he carried himself in meetings and once we started getting to practice and the weight room, you could tell right away that he was going to make an impact for us."
Hawkom, who has another season of athletic eligibilty (but isn't planning to use it), was named the LEC tournament MVP after recording eight goals and two assists over the Panthers' three-game playoff run. Four of his goals came in their 16-10 win at Western Connecticut in the LEC final.
Before helping Plymouth State capture the LEC title, Hawkom's only championship experience came in football when Central Connecticut won the Northeast Conference while he was a redshirt freshman in 2019.
"I had never really won a championship like that," Hawkom said. "It was nice to really have it all come together like that."
