Luke Kelly ’25, brother of teammates Michael Kelly ’21 and Connor Kelly ’22
There’s no one reason for the five-year run of state titles by St. John’s Prep lacrosse, but an ‘ultimate brotherhood’ may be the Tao of it all.
The 2023 state championship lacrosse game in Massachusetts became the 3-peat jewel in five straight crowns won by the Eagles’ program. During a contest knotted at 14-14 with 3:08 to go, then-senior Matt Morrow and sophomore Luke Kelly played pitch-and-catch along the right hash marks of the offensive zone. The midfielders moved with the nonchalance of a Sunday morning walkthrough.
Pausing 30 yards from goal, Kelly looked squarely at his sideline, where every coach was urging him to attack, then jab-stepped left before penetrating along the hash as Morrow leaked into the high slot, his back to goal with a defender fronting him about 12 yards out. Morrow drifted disarmingly upfield as Kelly made his run, prompting his shadow to overplay the point of attack. Recognizing the double-team, Kelly zipped a centering pass to Morrow, who rifled a lefty sidearm shot beneath the crossbar from 14 yards away.
The Prep went on to win 16-14 (after trailing 14-10 in the fourth), but the symbiosis of the go-ahead score is emblematic of the team’s level of preparation throughout 24 consecutive postseason victories to go with an overall record of 104 wins against nine losses in five seasons since COVID-19 snuffed the 2020 campaign. But there’s been another phenomenon at work throughout St. John’s dynastic reign.
The 2021 team featured six sets of brothers. The 2022 squad had a different set of six. That 2023 group had 10 varsity regulars who had previously played alongside an older brother while in the Prep program. The 2024 team had eight who fit that description and, in 2025, five players were of that mold, with two more joined on the roster by a younger brother.
Brothers Henry Sullivan ’27, JP Sullivan ’25, and George Sullivan ’29 with parents Jay and Katie at last spring’s senior game
All in all, 18 families have sent a total of 40 siblings to play in the Eagles’ lax program from 2019, when St. John’s lost to Lincoln Sudbury in the state semifinals, to the present day. However greatly or minimally those bloodlines have contributed to winning (spoiler alert: considerably), it is part and parcel of a preeminence that Salem News Sports Editor Phil Stacey characterized last summer as occurring with “machine-like precision.” It’s a nice turn of phrase, but it’s reductive.
If nothing else, the era of St. John’s lacrosse from 2018, three years prior to the program’s coronation, until now, has been grandly symphonic. A soaring structure of human unity. Powered, at least in part, by genetic coincidence.
“When you think about it, how better to create an environment where the kids are accountable than having a big brother on your team?” asks Kate Ayers P’21 ’23 ’27. “Your big brother tells you to knock it off. He tells you when you’re being lazy, he doesn’t let your head get too big. He motivates you uniquely because he knows what motivates you. He knows when you’re gripping your stick too tight and need to relax. He knows when you’re in your head and he knows how to get the best out of you.”
Sam Wilmot ’25, who shared the Prep experience with brothers Jack ’20 and Charlie ’22, lived that connection while wearing No. 44 for the Eagles.
“The brothers piece, the actual siblings on the team, definitely goes a long way for the tightness of the team bond that we formed over the years,” he says. “I think the continuity with last names and families is pretty remarkable. The sheer number of brothers and the success all those individuals had together seems really rare.”
These points are inarguable. Still, while there’s been a backyard vibe to the team culture for more than a half-decade, there are other formative dynamics at play. Talent will only take a team so far. As Ayers puts it, “You need a leader.”
Enter Head Coach John Pynchon ’01, who took the helm in 2017 following nine seasons as the Beverly High skipper.
“Coach has built a program where you learn values and they’re ingrained in you over four years, and you learn skills that are applicable to life which you’re going to use for years to come,” says Wilmot. “I think he cares just as much about your success as a man as he does about your success as a player on the field. He thinks the performance piece is great, but if he can see growth in you from ages 15 to 18, I think he views that as a win and therefore as success for the program.”
“He has this unique way he brings out the best in all these boys, physically and emotionally,” agrees Courtney Kelly P’21 ’22 ’25. “He truly shapes them, and he creates this kind of ultimate brotherhood. There are brothers on the team, which is so important and so cool, but then that whole team is a brotherhood within the locker room. He injects those St. John’s Prep values—the actual values of why parents send their boys to the Prep—into who that team is, and he’s able to translate it onto the field somehow. I think that’s incredible.”
Wins Take Care of Themselves
As a dean of students and coach, Pynchon’s M.O. is inversely proportional to the lunkhead Hollywood tropes of the 1980s. He is cerebral. He reads. A lot. He immerses himself in minutiae, but sees the bigger picture.
Pynchon is a fan of the late Bill Walsh, a similarly minded coaching architect of four Super Bowl championships in nine seasons from 1981-1990. “Walsh thought the most successful organizations focus on doing things the right way, day-to-day. Whatever the values of the organization are, if you do those things, you can be successful, and you can also be successful without winning a championship.
“We talk with our guys a lot about that,” he continues. “If we lose but give great effort and we’re respectful and we do everything right execution-wise, but the other team flat out beats us, there’s nothing to hang your head about there. You just didn’t get the outcome you wanted. That happens. I think when you zoom out and look at the repetitiveness of doing things the right way, the trend is that you’ll win more than you lose.”
Walsh was known as “The Genius” in pro football circles. He was the NFL’s answer to John Wooden, the “Wizard of Westwood,” who led UCLA to 10 NCAA basketball championships in 12 seasons, including seven in a row, from 1964-75. Pynchon isn’t seeking a nickname, and he sees himself as a perfectly ordinary high school coach. But there is a certain ingenuity to the interplay of opposites inherent in his leadership.
On the one hand, there’s a downright Confucian tone that his whole coaching staff embraces. Example: an annual player-development exercise called “The Hero’s Journey” which Pynchon describes—with a straight face, mind you—as “a bastardized version of the literary theme tied in with some team-building stuff along with Bloom’s and Maslow’s psychology.”
Strange as it may seem in the age of generative AI, the stuff lands with players.
“We use a lot of acronyms,” says goalie Mattheus Du Plessis ’26. “We have one that’s ‘Effort, Accountability, Attitude, Team.’ EAAT (pronounced eat). Those are four core values of the program. I feel like because we learn those values so early in the season, it allows you to grow. If we aren’t playing well or don’t practice well, you go back to those core values and just find out where you need to improve.”
Player-development exercises also include sessions envisioning a new season’s ultimate conclusion, goal-setting reflections, and exploring the trajectory of any endeavor from unconscious incompetence to conscious competence to mastery.
Will Sawyer ’23, brother of teammate Caelan Sawyer ’20
“Our biggest advantage is how much our coaches put into the program,” says Du Plessis. “Coach Pynchon tells us at the spring sports meeting before we even step on the field that they’re going to be the hardest working coaching staff in the state. I think that rings true the entire season. The reason we’re so successful is because of how much the kids buy into the program. Our coaches give us so many resources.”
At the same time, Pynchon is unafraid to invoke some cosmic balance. In other words, he’s Zen enough to let things breathe.
“I remember last year, we were in a rough stretch at practice and he told us to drop our sticks and brought out (the lawn game) Spikeball for us to play,” recalls attackman Beckett Lee ’27. “Total tension-breaker.”
Pynchon indulges a broad spectrum of personalities, but demands that his club adopt a collective mentality.
“He knows his players so well,” says Wilmot, now a 6-foot-1, 195-pound long stick midfielder/defender at the University of Richmond. “The first few weeks of last season, we weren’t playing up to the standard we expected (as a state title favorite). As a captain, I was frustrated. One day, Pynchon pulled me aside at practice and asked me a question I wasn’t expecting. He said, ‘Sam, are you having fun?’ And I answered him honestly. I said, ‘No, I’m not. I’m not having fun.’ He said that lacrosse is supposed to be fun and a game and a time for us to cut loose. That was just what I needed. It changed my outlook for the rest of the year. I think that moment kind of encapsulates what coach is all about.”
The St. John’s Prep coaching ranks represent a wealth of riches for the School’s student-athletes. Multiple programs—in particular wrestling, ice hockey, mountain biking, swimming & diving, Alpine skiing, tennis, and football—have enjoyed lofty year-over-year (and often championship) success of late. The lacrosse program’s lone state championship pre-dynasty came in 2010. But considering that the bloodline of birth brothers within the program somehow keeps finding form as part of more traditional team bonds—creating an ultimate brotherhood—that’s different.
“That feeling definitely extends to (the non-siblings),” says Kelly. “The coaches just create a world in which the boys believe and they bond together and they band together and they work for each other. These guys are brothers for life. They’re there for each other on and off the field. It’s difficult to put into words how close these boys are. And it’s not just Pynchon. That whole coaching staff cares deeply about the boys’ development as a person. As a player too, yes, but that has always seemed secondary.”
SJP LAX: THE RISE TO GREATNESS
2019: 18-4 Lost to Lincoln Sudbury 10-6 in the semifinals
2020: Season vacated (COVID-19)*
2021: 17-1 Defeated BC High 11-7 in state championship
2022: 22-2 Defeated BC High 11-5 in state championship
2023: 22-2 Defeated BC High 16-14 in state championship
2024: 21-3 Defeated Needham 17-13 in state championship
2025: 22-1 Defeated BC High 8-7 (OT) in state championship
*The pandemic denied 12 seniors their final high school season, including standouts Jack Wilmot, Jackson Klein, Michael Ott, and Tripp Clark, among others.
P.S. Want to see more of how strong coaching philosophy translates to success on the field? Read about Coach Brian St. Pierre and the football team here.
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