Ohio lacrosse players Michael Boehm and Caleb Newman were named last week as Under Armour All-Americans.
With the honor, the two players would ordinarily participate in the UA All-America Game, held in Maryland each summer.
The two players will be among over 70 Division 1 college lacrosse players from Ohio on 2021 rosters.
The release of this year’s roster also came with an announcement that this year’s game, originally set for July and rescheduled to August, would not take place due to COVID-19.
2020 marks the third time two Ohioans have received UA All-America honors.
2016 Under Armour All-America selection Danny Logan—one of 4 Upper Arlington players to receive the honor since 2006—in action for Denver against Marquette. (Photo for LaxAcrossAmerica by Justin Casterline)
Midfielders Will Campbell of Worthington Kilbourne (who went on to play at North Carolina), and Dublin Jerome’s Eric Ruhl (Johns Hopkins) were selected in 2010.
In 2008, both Grant Oliver, a defenseman from Upper Arlington (Maryland), and Western Reserve attackman Colby Wilson (Georgetown) received UA honors.
Boehm and Newman are the 10th and 11th Ohioans overall to be recognized since the event’s inception in 2006.
Michael Boehm
Michael Boehm played on two Ohio state championship teams.
In hockey.
Boehm divided his time on the ice between forward and defenseman, compiling in three seasons 102 points on 35 goals and 67 assists—or roughly the equivalent to his output in a single season of lacrosse.
He had 112 points in his 2018 sophomore season at attack, with 67 goals and 45 assists.
The lefty attackman bettered that in 2019, his last full season, with 118 points on 71 goals and 47 assists.
Boehm didn’t manage to win a state championship in lacrosse.
But he did lead the Wildcats to consecutive appearances in the state finals.
His honors at St. Ignatius also included First Team All-Midwest, All-American, and selection to the UA Underclass Tournament in 2019.
Beyond that, he was a 5-star recruit ranked #21 overall by Inside Lacrosse among his class nationally.
Boehm, who was also affiliated with the West Coast Starz program, will be attending Michigan.
Michigan came off a disappointing 2019 season, going 4-9 overall with only one win in Big Ten play.
Prior to the cancellation of their 2020 season, the Wolverines were 4-3 in 2020, with one of those games being a 17-11 loss against top-five Yale in a game played in March in Costa Mesa, California.
Caleb Newman and Deerfield Academy
Caleb Newman will be entering Cornell in the fall, but not out of any high school in Ohio.
Though he graduated from Lebanon High School, Newman will be headed to Ithaca from Deerfield Academy, a prep school in Massachusetts that is a dominant New England power, and one that has solidified its national reputation in recent years with top honors in the National High School Lacrosse Showcase.
A post-graduate year at a boarding school like Deerfield has become an increasingly popular option for some players.
No less than Rob Pannell, the Ivy League’s all-time leading scorer, also came to Cornell after a PG year at Deerfield and graduation from Smithtown High School on Long Island.
The PG route is especially appealing to players from non-hotbed areas looking for additional exposure and seasoning.
Danny Logan, one of over 70 players from Ohio on Division 1 lacrosse rosters in 2020, has had as teammates at Denver the Sullivan brothers from Tucson, Arizona.
Both Chris Sullivan, a senior defenseman, and his brother Ted, a junior midfielder, attended Deerfield as well.
Current Maryland All-American Bubba Fairman, a Utah native, also spent a post-grad year at Deerfield.
The sad fact is that though Newman was able to play at Deerfield, it was only as a member of the school’s football team (the 6’1″, 187 lb. LSM is also an outside linebacker, and played at Lebanon as well).
Still, Newman didn’t exactly arrive in Massachusetts as a raw talent.
He’d been a highly regarded defender at Lebanon, a 4-star recruit ranked by Inside Lacrosse as the 56th best recruit overall in his class nationally.
St. Ignatius Lacrosse
Michael Boehm’s selection marks the first time a St. Ignatius player has been chosen for the UA game.
The Wildcats program has produced a number of quality players over the years, including Anthony Kelly, the Ohio State face-off specialist still considered to be one of Ohio’s all-time best lacrosse players.
Still, the Under Armour game at least tends to reflect the historical dominance of the state’s western region.
The chart above shows a litany of Columbus and Cincinnati-area stalwarts like Upper Arlington, St. Xavier, Worthington Kilbourne, Dublin Jerome, and Thomas Worthington.
St. Ignatius is in Cleveland.
And though the area has had a UA selection before—Western Reserve Academy is a boarding school but Colby Wilson, a UA honoree in 2008 was from nearby Hudson—Boehm’s selection can be seen as something of coming of age for the area.
Inside Lacrosse, for instance, had suggested as early as last fall that a player of Boehm’s caliber signaled the emergence of Northeast Ohio lacrosse.
The prospect of an northeastern counterweight to the traditional Columbus and Cincinnati powers is an exciting one.
David Parry is the founder and editor of LaxAcrossAmerica. A New York-based digital marketer and copywriter, he played Division 1 lacrosse as a walk-on at Brown.
