Upper St. Clair's "winning tradition" in boys' lacrosse was put on hold last season when the Panthers suffered a rare losing record, going 5-9 overall in the WPSLA.

It was the program's first losing campaign in six years.

Nevertheless, USC qualified for the league playoffs before losing to Bethel Park after finishing in fourth place in the Division 1 South standings.

With only eight seniors with little varsity experience, USC may be challenged to finish above the .500 mark again regarding its overall won-loss record.

The future looks very bright, however, for USC coach Michael Messina, who has a very talented group of freshmen and sophomores.

"We wouldn't be going into the season thinking we're just going to be .500," said Messina whose team was scheduled to begin its schedule last night at Fox Chapel. "We certainly have some expectations for this team, even though we're a little bit young right now. We still have quite a few older guys who are shaping into a team quite nicely."

Only four starters return from last season. Two of the top returnees are seniors, defenders Zach Lemis and Steve Donovan. Both will serve as captains along with junior midfielder Spencer Scott and sophomore midfielder Jon Seigel, the other returning starters.

"This year we'll be rotating our attack players moreso than we did in the past," Messina said. "We only played three or four guys at attack before, but this year we're going to probably go with six or seven at various points in the season."

Messina took over at USC last year in the aftermath of back-to-back 16-3 campaigns prior to his arrival. Upper St. Clair won its only WPSLA title in 2005.

Other senior returnees who lettered last year include midfielder Jake Lippert and attacker Matt Moretti.

Although senior leadership will play an important role on the team, youth will be served this year, most notably from Seigel and freshman defender Drew Newman. There are 60 players in the program from grades 9-12 and 17 are ninth-graders who were part of an unbeaten middle school team last year.

"We have an outstanding freshman class and we're looking forward to them improving all year long and not just through a few months of limited practice during the spring," Messina said. "At certain points in the season, we're hoping to play as many as six freshmen on the varsity team. They're outstanding players.

"They've been playing together for so long. Most of them play other sports and most of them are already physically mature, so they're not like a typical freshman class coming in.

"I think [Newman] is going to be a Division 1 prospect at some point. He also plays football. And Jon [Seigel] also has a lot of potential. He is very athletic and he's also a basketball player. It helps that he's involved in sports year-round, but he is mostly a lacrosse player. I've already had a few people contact me about the possibility of him playing in college."

Upper St. Clair will get plenty of opportunity to prepare for league competition by playing six non-division games before the South 1 opener at Hampton April 14.

With 250 boys playing the sport on an organized level in the school district, USC is hoping to emulate the model established by rival Mt. Lebanon which has won five WPSLA titles since 2000, including back-to-back titles since 2006.

"Mt. Lebanon has been ahead of everyone else [in terms of player development]," Messina said. "They have excellent coaches, starting at the lower grade levels. They generally have their excellent players from previous years stick around and continue to coach at Mt. Lebanon.

"They've been running the same system for so long and it's a successful system that has worked really well.

"We're hoping to put that same kind of system into effect here with guys playing at the seventh- and eighth-grade level and continue them with the same type and style of coaching when they get to high school, which will be a big help.

"We've spent a considerable portion of the offseason training coaches for the youth level so we're all on the same page. We're also going to have four or five freshmen going to some of the top lacrosse camps in the country."