By Kim J. Harmon

 

When Charlie Heinzer scored his 100th career goal back in 1996, it was something new and exciting. But since then, five other players have crossed that barrier and the school record – which Heinzer originally set at 124 – has been broken twice.

Caitlin Collier reset the mark at 134 in 2000.

Ellie Champagne reset the mark at 144 in 2002.

And now Casey Kirch – a fifth grader back when Heinzer became the charter member of the 100-goal club – has reset the bar again. Presently it sits at 161, but with several more regular season, South-West Conference tournament, and CIAC Division I tournament games left in 2003 there is no telling where that bar is going to end up.

180?

190?

200?

“I’d always read the articles about Charlie and I always looked up to him. I felt the record was something to shoot for,” said Casey, 18, who smiled and added, “I remember, in fifth grade, I got his autograph on my banquet program.”

Casey, whose uncle once played at the University of Connecticut, started playing lacrosse back in the second grade. A year later, the Kirch’s moved to Newtown and Casey soon began his career in youth lacrosse.

But he had always been a midfielder and while middies score goals, they don’t score a lot of goals. Ironically, it was his stature – 5 foot 7, 155 pounds – that got him moved up to attack.

And he flourished.

“I always felt I would play middie,” said Casey, “but coach (Brian Micena) felt defending bigger middies might be a problem. I loved making the change.”

Casey scored 11 goals as a freshman, 34 goals as a sophomore and 80 more as a junior (incidentally, the single-season record was set the same year as Ellie Champagne scored 93 to lead the girls’ lacrosse team). But he will be the first to admit that his scoring prolificacy would not be possible without offensive threats like Tommy Ryan (30) and John Oliver (39) roaming the box.

“It’s kind of weird,” Casey said, “how we all slipped into our roles. John has really stepped it up and Tommy and I are content to give the ball up. I think we have the chemistry going.”

The chemistry is one of the things (that, and the amazing talent) that had the Nighthawks on the brink of a CIAC Division II state championship. After beating New Fairfield to claim the SWC championship a couple weeks before, the ‘Hawks fell to another SWC power, Joel Barlow, by one goal in the D-II finals.

“That took a while for us to get over,” said Casey. “It’s still hard to think about it. After we had some time off and started thinking about the next year, we started being proud of what we had accomplished.”

Casey has 36 goals (as of this writing) and has a decent shot at becoming the first-ever player to score 200 career goals, but at this point he has his sights set on a couple of more important goals.

““I don’t like to get lost in personal goals, but if that were to be possible we’d have to get a few games into the states,” said Casey. “Our main goal right now is to defend the conference title. And we definitely want to make a little run in the (CIAC Division I) state playoffs.”

Whatever the new school record ends up at this season, Casey wonders how long of a shelf life it might actually have. It is not inconceivable that a guy like Oliver, a junior, could make a play for that record in 2004.

“People always say … ‘Kirch, I don’t think it’s going to last,’ ” said Casey.

Maybe not, but starting next year Casey will be more concerned with making something out of his career at Division I Sacred Heart University in Fairfield. The Stags 7-7 in 2003 and will be losing three attackmen to graduation, so there is a chance that Casey could make a contribution right away.

But those thoughts are for another time.

Right now, Casey and the Nighthawks (8-2 overall, 5-1 in the SWC) have more pressing business on their minds.