Tony Kennedy knows football. He also knows lacrosse is enjoying a meteoric rise in popularity across the country, not to mention being a primary sport in his home state of Maryland.
It only figures that the founder and president of Extra Point Productions is branching out into the lacrosse business.
Tony Kennedy at Navy Stadium.
Photo by Jim Stout
Kennedy, who in recent years has successfully launched the I-95 Kickoff Classic in Maryland and the Patriot Football Classic at the Naval Academy, will try his hand at lacrosse this weekend in the inaugural LacrossePlayground.com Spring Classic at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis.
The event commences on Friday night at 7:30, with MaxPreps defending boys national champion
Haverford, Pa. - presently ranked No. 2 in the nation - facing No. 16
Landon (Bethesda, Md.). Four boys games and one girls game will be held on Saturday, including appearances by the No. 7
Loyola Blakefield (Towson, Md.) boys and the No. 23
Gonzaga (Washington, D.C.) boys.
As an added attraction, the first Spring Classic will feature a Baltimore vs Washington, D.C, inter-city clash, with
Baltimore Poly scheduled to face Washington's
Woodrow Wilson. In all, teams from Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and the District of Columbia will be participating.
Extra Point's venture partner,
LacrossePlayground.com, is headed by Washington natives and former University of Maryland lacrosse players Harry and Thomas Alfond.
"We know football and how to manage big events," said Kennedy. "But we went to the Alford brothers for their lacrosse expertise. This is a pretty good lineup of teams for the first year and it's only going to get bigger and better moving forward."
Extra Point Productions has already featured prominent football programs such as
Our Lady of Good Counsel,
DeMatha,
Gilman,
Friendship Academy and
Oscar Smith in its brief history; this season, the football lineup will include a game between defending national champion
Don Bosco and Gilman in the second-annual Patriot Classic at Navy.
Not only do Kennedy and Extra Point Productions plan to grow the lacrosse showcase in years to come, they are planning to add a major soccer event this fall, and a baseball showcase next spring. Basketball has been discussed as well.
"The whole idea when we started (with Extra Point) was to get exposure for the kids," Kennedy said, who played college football at Virginia Tech. "It's worked out well with football so far and it's going to work out well this weekend with lacrosse. I can see a lot of good things happening with all the sports."
The complete schedule for the inaugural LacrossePlayground.com Spring Classic may be found
here.
Jim Stout is
the CBS MaxPreps Media Manager for the Eastern U.S. He may be reached at 845-367-2864 or at jim.stout@cbsi.com
