On February 1, Kyle Gardner signed his National Letter of Intent to continue his lacrosse career at Lake Erie College, Ohio.

Gardner was an outstanding offensive player for the Linganore varsity team, playing varsity since he was a sophomore. Starting at the right attackmen position, Gardner was one of the team’s leading goal scorers for Linganore during his last two years. 

Varsity head coach Rich Thompson had always believed Gardner was a very valuable player.

“Kyle had a lot of potential” when he first started playing on varsity,” Thompson said. “Kyle was a goofy kid, but he also had lots of skill. [He was] a lot different from his brother [as a student-athlete].”

Kyle’s older brother Graham Gardner was a senior when Kyle was just a sophomore. Gardner mentioned his brother as “a very good player to look up to.” 

To his credit, Gardner came into Linganore High School with a lot of lacrosse experience, having played for three different club teams: Westside Club, Team Maryland Lacrosse Club and Lax Factory. He had a total of 10-11 years of lacrosse experience prior to joining the Linganore team.

Despite the benefit of years of experience and an older brother who played, Gardner faced a lot of challenges throughout his athletic career.

Fortunately for Gardner, these were challenges he was able to overcome. For instance, he learned to use his non-dominant hand to optimize his playing on the field.

Additionally, at the very first practice of Gardner’s junior lacrosse season he suffered an injury to the knee. Luckily, Gardner was able to recover very quickly in a few days and continue to dominate the rest of the season.

“[In] last year’s first tryouts, I busted up my knee, and it kept me out for a decent bit,” Gardner said.

Gardner is very excited about attending Lake Erie College.  He loved the program, and he loved the way the players were treated.

“The program was good and they treated me the best out of the other colleges I looked into,” Gardner said.

Overall, Gardner is very happy with the decision he made to play division II lacrosse at Lake Erie College.