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LakeForestLeader.com sports<br />
the lake forest leader | August 17, 2017 | 29<br />
Going Places<br />
Johnston joins elite Maryland lacrosse team<br />
Erin Redmond, Sports Editor<br />
As Colton Johnston<br />
packs his bags for Maryland,<br />
he finds himself<br />
reflecting on how he got<br />
here.<br />
The recent Lake Forest<br />
High School graduate always<br />
dreamed of playing<br />
collegiate-level lacrosse,<br />
but it’s only now sinking<br />
in that his dream is coming<br />
true. Johnston will<br />
head east to continue his<br />
playing career with the<br />
2017 NCAA Champion<br />
University of Maryland<br />
program on Tuesday, Aug.<br />
22.<br />
“I’m kind of nervous;<br />
there’s a lot of pressure<br />
just because it’s such an<br />
intense program there,”<br />
Johnston admitted. “Obviously<br />
it’s a lifelong dream<br />
of mine to play at such a<br />
high level, especially at<br />
such at a cool school with<br />
tradition like Maryland.<br />
There’s so much history<br />
with lacrosse there. It’s<br />
really cool also to just be<br />
there and have it be such<br />
a well-known lacrosse<br />
school and get to go there<br />
and get to prove yourself<br />
at the highest level.”<br />
Earning a scholarship<br />
with the defending national<br />
champions, however,<br />
was no easy feat.<br />
Johnston said he had to<br />
decide early on in his high<br />
school career to commit<br />
all his efforts to lacrosse<br />
in order to put himself in a<br />
position to play in college.<br />
He sacrificed all his free<br />
time to practice and even<br />
gave up playing football<br />
his sophomore year to<br />
attend recruiting days in<br />
order to make his dream<br />
come true.<br />
“It was hard and at such<br />
a young age, it kind of<br />
pushes you and makes you<br />
Colton Johnston, a recent Lake Forest High School graduate, will continue playing lacrosse with the 2017 NCAA Champion University of<br />
Maryland. Photo submitted<br />
[ask] ‘do you really want<br />
to go through and follow<br />
through with all this hard<br />
work even though you’re<br />
missing summers and<br />
a lot hangout time with<br />
your friends?’ It’s a lot of<br />
time on the road, but it really<br />
made it worth it in the<br />
end,” he said. “ ... It taught<br />
me the lesson at a young<br />
age that if you do put that<br />
hard work in, it really<br />
makes it worthwhile.”<br />
Playing at Maryland is<br />
a homecoming of sorts for<br />
Johnston, who was born<br />
and grew up in on the East<br />
Coast in Richfield, Conn.<br />
before moving to Lake<br />
Forest in fifth grade. His<br />
hometown, Johnston said,<br />
is a hotbed for a lacrosse<br />
and a place where virtually<br />
everyone he grew<br />
up with had a stick in<br />
their hand. It’s where he<br />
first fell in love with the<br />
sport and he carried that<br />
same passion to the North<br />
Shore, playing four years<br />
on varsity with the Scouts.<br />
Marc Thiergart, the<br />
Scouts coach, said Johnston’s<br />
“happy-go-lucky”<br />
demeanor helped motivate<br />
and inspire his teammates<br />
to work just as hard as he<br />
was. And though he was<br />
bitten by the injury bug<br />
which left him sidelined a<br />
couple times over the last<br />
two seasons, it was his attitude<br />
which helped him<br />
power through and ultimately<br />
land a scholarship,<br />
Thiergart said.<br />
“Every time he gets<br />
knocked down, he gets<br />
back up again and works<br />
harder and gets himself<br />
ready to go,” the <strong>LF</strong>HS<br />
coach said. “I have no<br />
doubt that he’ll be working<br />
extra hard to get ready<br />
for the season and will get<br />
on the field eventually.”<br />
Those four years on<br />
varsity proved pivotal for<br />
Johnston as he developed<br />
his game.<br />
As an underclassman on<br />
the Scouts squad, Johnston<br />
said he learned how<br />
to be a role player from<br />
his talented junior and senior<br />
teammates. And he’ll<br />
be seeing one of them<br />
again at Maryland, joining<br />
<strong>LF</strong>HS alumnus and rising<br />
junior Wes Janeck on the<br />
Terrapins team.<br />
“I’m really looking forward<br />
to pushing myself and<br />
going to the next level and<br />
obviously seeing where<br />
I’ll fit in there,” Johnston<br />
said. “[Janek is] playing at<br />
Maryland now and I played<br />
with him my freshman and<br />
sophomore year at Lake<br />
Forest, so I’ll be teammates<br />
with him again next year,<br />
which I’m really excited<br />
about. We’re pretty good<br />
friends; we’ve grown close<br />
over the years.”<br />
Thiergart said Maryland<br />
is gaining a strong overall<br />
and “natural” athlete in<br />
Johnston with uncanny,<br />
unteachable speed.<br />
But the former Scout<br />
won’t be resting on his<br />
laurels.<br />
Johnston knows the hard<br />
work won’t end just because<br />
he’s on the Terrapins<br />
squad either. With national<br />
champion-caliber teammates<br />
surrounding him, he<br />
knows he’ll have to continue<br />
to grind in order to<br />
earn playing time.<br />
“I just really want to go<br />
in and compete and show<br />
what I have to the coaches<br />
and my teammates and<br />
myself, too, and all the<br />
people who supported me<br />
along the way,” Johnston<br />
said. “I just want to go in,<br />
prove myself and compete<br />
and really get some serious<br />
playing time.”
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