When Baylor’s lacrosse team launches their season home opener today (Saturday) against Starr’s Mill (Ga.), they will be kicking off the program’s 10th year.
It will also represent the year that Tucker Hunt, who passed away in 2008, would have been a senior member of the 2016 team along with classmates Will Anderson, Andy Atchley, Preston Ballard, Owen Bettis, Robert Farrell, Cain Hawkins, Brandon Johnson, Dustin Johnson, Haden Lamance, Peyton Martin, Ian McMahon, Walker Norris, Matthew Palermo, Caleb Powell, Cooper Reiniche, and Ben Shuptrine.
Shuptrine remembers his friendship with Tucker fondly. “I still remember walking back from the practice field and talking with him when we were in the seventh grade,” he says. “He really loved the game. So every game I play, I play for him.”
Palermo, who never knew Tucker, still views him as a friend. “I came to Baylor after his death,” he says, “but I’ve taken up the idea that he’s part of our team, part of the Baylor lacrosse family. Even though I never knew him, I’ve dedicated every practice and every game to his memory.”
The game will take place at 1:30 p.m. at the Tucker Hunt '16 Memorial Field, a state-of-the-art artificial surface facility dedicated in 2014 and used exclusively for lacrosse. Tucker’s memory will be celebrated in a halftime ceremony. His parents, Kim and Steve Hunt, will be attending, as well as their son Cannon, who is an eighth grader at Baylor and a member of the Middle School lacrosse team. Their older son, Spencer, is a student at Wofford.
After a short stint of lacrosse in the mid-1990s, Baylor recommitted to the sport in the spring of 2007, bringing head coach Jon Bloom from The Webb School in Bell Buckle, Tn., where he had coached for eight seasons. Bloom had taken Webb to the 1998 Tennessee Scholastic Lacrosse Association (TSLA) Division 1 Final Four and was named TSLA Coach of the Year in the same season.
In nine seasons, Baylor has posted a 94-58 record and in 2010, the team’s fourth year, they won the TSLA Division 2 state championship. Baylor moved to TSLA's Division 1 in 2011 and has been a state quarterfinalist four of the last five years. Since 2010, 14 Baylor players have gone on to play at the collegiate level.
The 2016 season will feature home games versus nationally ranked teams Severn (Md.) and Christian Brothers as well as rival McCallie.