BBL is excited to announce our partnership with Kerry Weigner - the owner of two clubs in the Princeton area: Team Turnpike (Boys) and Garden State Elite (Girls - abbreviated GSE).

BBL Princeton Plan for 2021-2022

This partnership has been in the works for several years. We had met Kerry during the Under Armour tryouts in 2014 - and we've met several times to talk about our principles, our vision for the future and what it takes to build great travel clubs on a national level. Over the years we've watched Kerry, who also has a full time job as a HS teacher (business), maintain a highly competitive club. By partnering - BBL will be supporting the club with back end Admin and Logistical Support, enhancing their ability to communicate via email/website and social media, and implementing our year round training programs through their membership to our National Team program.

BBL-Turnpike/GSE

Organizational Structure

Proudly serves THE Greater Princeton area: 

Mercer County, Somerset County, Hunterdon County, Middlesex County, Monmouth County,

Burlington County, Buck County (PA), Northhampton 

County (PA), Warren County

Kerry C. Weigner - Turnpike/GSE Owner

Kerry comes to BBL with 17+ years of experience leading Team Turnpike and building GSE, while also coaching high school lacrosse.

• Varsity Head Coach (HC) - East Brunswick HS (1998-2001).
• Varsity Head Coach (HC) - WWP-South (2002-2006).
• Assistant Coach Immaculata HS (2007-2018). Helped lead the Spartans while continuing to run Team Turnpike. During his tenure, they reached the State Pep B finals 8 times while winning 5 State Championships which they haven't reached before or since.
• NJ Under Armour All-American Underclassman HC/AC (2014-2019) 2016 National Champions

Alex Lopes - Turnpike Travel Director (Field and Box), Academy Director, Recruiting Coordinator, BBL National Director of Curriculum Design and Coaches Training

• Played at St. Joseph's University ('06-'09).
• Division 1 coach (Fiarfield, Jacksonville, NJIT).
• Trilogy Lacrosse Regional Program Director.
• Currently HC of BBL Central 2023 Black - which has several high level D1/D3 recruits

Alex has proven to be one of the great minds within our program. He is going to take on a significant role next year, helping build out the future of Turnpike by advancing their academy training, ensuring travel practices are college level, and building our their box program.

Liz Cook - GSE Girls Travel Director and Academy Program

• The Lawrenceville School, Assistant Coach, 2017-Present
• The Hun School, Head Coach, 2014-2017
• Princeton Day School, assistant coach 1999-2014
• Brown University (Lacrosse and Field Hockey) 1990-1994
• 2-time All-American at Princeton Day School

Liz will manage GSE and develop the staff while working in conjunction with BBL Central to utilize our program wide playbooks and academy programming. She has a tremendous resume and an experience set. We will work hand in hand with her to implement BBL-style training.

Meg Clements - GSE Girls Director of Player Development and Recruiting

• Stevens Institute of Technology, Assistant Coach
• Rutgers University - former 2nd Team All-Big East
• Hopewell Valley High School - two-time Mercer County Player of the Year

Meg will manage recruiting and work with BBL Central to utilize all of our resources to place our players at the best colleges possible.

"You can not find two finer lacrosse coaches or human beings to coach, mentor, and guide your daughters." - Kerry Weigner

BBL Admin and Logistical Support

A primary factor in our Union/Essex/Morris County travel program's success has been our admin and logistical support teams - which assist with everything from customer support to helping manage the needs of each team and coaching staff. We are implementing this with the BBL Princeton Area program.

BBL Programming

BBL is a player-development centric program which provides great year-round individual and group training. This programming will be applied to the BBL Princeton Area. Our home base will provide top coaches and will assist in developing the coaching staff - providing offerings ranging from Position Specific Training and Box Lacrosse. Please read below for more information.

Travel Team Programming and the BBL National Team

Our basic travel team program

Fall: 6 practices, 3-4 tournaments

Winter: 10-12 player development sessions

Spring: 6 practices (youth), 1-2 tournaments

Summer: 10-12 practices, 4-5 tournaments

In addition to this core offering, we offer the BBL National Program which is an additional all star program for the top players from each region. This program will draw players from our 4 regional travel team locations (Princeton, Summit/Chatham, Bergen, Shore) and our training academy in the Tewksbury/Long Valley region.

Multi-Regional Player Pools

In each region BBL will provide training academies, box lacrosse programs and field travel teams - high level training from Early Player Development to College Commitment. The travel teams will all serve as independent organizations where player pools are being developed.

BBL National Teams for Boys and Girls

Quarterly combines will bring together grade based teams from each region to compete with and against each other, while being coached and evaluated by BBL trainers from each region. After each event - players will be ranked on a depth chart per each grade. If they perform well enough they will be invited to play on the BBL National Team, in addition to the regular travel programming. We will seek to form 2 National Teams per grade - starting with the World Series Qualifiers in 7th grade and continuing into high school through when the players are recruited for college.

World Series of Youth Lacrosse

All players on Team Turnpike will be eligible to play on our World Series of Youth Lacrosse (WSYL) teams. Over the past few years we've had a lot of success at this event - with our 2024s making it to the semifinals and 2025s making it to the finals this past summer. We are also hearing that the WSYL will have a girls division in 2022 which we will also enter teams for!

How do we become the top program in the country?

Our BBL Black teams have gotten to the highest levels of national lacrosse. We often go up against National teams drawing players from multiple states. To compete we have designed an efficient system of travel programs in close proximity to each another that can share ideas, train together, have players guest play for each others' team and build a cohesive unit grade by grade. For the World Series of Youth Lacrosse to Naptown - we will be able to combine talented players from multiple regions to field some of the top teams in the country because we will have been developing player pools of talented players in each region.

Academy Training and Box Lacrosse

Academy Training

BBL provides excellent developmental training, has been systematized and can easily be recreated in other regions. We offer programs for "Core Training" which focuses on bringing players through three levels of progression from beginner to advanced; "Scoring Academy" teaching players about shooting technique and dodging; and "Position Specific Training" (PST) for Attack, Midfield, Defense, Goaltending and Face Offs. We have PST "gurus" based out of our home base who will travel to each region to provide training for players 1 day per week and will also develop staff in each region who can offer training more frequently. These gurus will also engage with our regional players through a special App we have been developing which offers at home PST training routines.

Box Lacrosse

We have a facility rented for next year to provide box academy training and travel teams. Alex Lopes will lead the Box Travel program in the winter. He will serve as the director of our box program. We will provide training/game play opportunities in the fall and in the winter and host Box Lacrosse Travel Teams which will have 10 practices and participate in 3-4 Box tournaments. We will also have a Box National Team Model drawing from our regional Box Programs in Bergen County, Summit/Chatham area, Princeton and BBL Shore. The National teams will seek to play in extra events in Canada, on the reservations and the USBOXLA national championships in California.

We will only field one Girls Box program which will be the national team that pulls from all of our regions.

Additional Features

Recruiting Department

Alex Lopes (Boys) and Meg Clements (Girls) will work in conjunction with our BBL Central recruiting coordinators Byron Collins (Boys) and Sam Warner (Girls) to ensure that we are maintaining good guidance counseling for our players with the recruiting process.

College Coaching Series

At our home base in Florham Park - we are offering "The College Coaching Series" which will be an ongoing program that brings top college coaches to NJ to offer training and exposure to our players.

College Player/Pro Player Clinics

Out of the Florham Park facility we have secured the services of top Pro/College players like Tom Schreiber, Jack Runkel, UNC's Ally Mastroianni, amongst others.

Utilizing Video

We have been starting to do a lot of team video review over Zoom. We have also been working with video editors and social media content producers to create content to promote our players.

The BBL Center for Lacrosse Excellence (Florham Park Sports Dome)

The BBL Center for Lacrosse Excellence is a tremendous aspect of our club. Our facility provides what an IMG or private school/university is able to provide for their players from an athletic services stand point. This will be the home base for BBL National. This facility allows for us to host full field games, recruiting showcases, and special training events with top instructors from the college and pro game.

Facility Features:

• Full Field Indoor Field (temperature controlled)
• Outdoor fields (behind the facility)
• Box Rink: we own a buildable rink that can be set up inside or outside the facility
• Parisi Athleticism Training Center: weight room, running area, training tools
• Sports Medicine Department: The physical therapy center inside the building is designing a program specific for BBL members to address injury prevention and injury recovery.
• BBL Home Offices: administrative office, gear store, conference rooms
• Team film room
• Team meeting rooms
• Video game room for team bonding events - Call of Duty anyone?

The BBL Virtual Training Academy

BBL is excited to announce the BBL Virtual Academy, an at home training app we are building with a new NYC-based start up software company built by our friends who used to work at Spotify. We will be using this app as the backbone for helping improve NJ lacrosse. Our goals for using the App:

• BBL's training programs (Core 1/2/3, Position Specific Training, Box Lacrosse Training, Shooting Academy) will live on the app. The content will be used to create a certification program for our trainers led by our Master Coaches and Position Specific Gurus.
• BBL students will have access to work outs designed in conjunction with our curriculums. Two types - at home learning (learning new skills) and at home training (working out on your own or with a friend/parent on fast paced drills). This will help speed up the rate of improvement of players between classes and practice.
• BBL is dedicated to supporting town lacrosse going into next year and we will be launching a coaches training program in February and March - and will give players access to virtual training content.