YARMOUTH – Steven Petrovek was often the first player to get to practice for the Yarmouth boys’ lacrosse team and the last to leave.

“Even this year, he’d be at practice an hour early, and he didn’t need to be,” said Yarmouth Coach Craig Curry. “He’d be over there working on his shot. He was a great role model for the other boys He was just a great player to have on my team to show the other players what you have to do to be as good as he is.”

Additional Photos

Steven Petrovek took up lacrosse after his family moved to Maine from Colorado, and he made up for lost time by spending countless hours working on his skills. Gordon Chibroski

A two-time All-American, Petrovek was named the Maine Sunday Telegram MVP after scoring a team-high 52 goals with 46 assists to help the Clippers win their third straight Eastern Class B title.

Petrovek’s unceasing efforts to perfect his skills helped him develop into one of the state’s top attackmen.

“You know, there are a lot of kids who want to be something,” Curry said. “They think they want to put the work and time in. He did.”

Petrovek, the son of Portland Pirates managing owner Brian Petrovek, was introduced to lacrosse after his family moved to Maine from Colorado.

“I had a stick out there and I kind of started throwing (the ball) around a little bit,” he said. “But it wasn’t until I got to Yarmouth I started playing organized lacrosse.”

By the time Petrovek started high school, lacrosse became a year-round pursuit.

“I do a couple of camps in the summer and I do some premier lacrosse indoors,” he said. “I pretty much have a stick in my hand 12 months out of the year.”

His training also included marathon shooting sessions on the turf field in Yarmouth.

“Coach Curry’s old house happened to be right next to the turf field, so I’d walk over and grab a bucket of balls out of his garage and go and hang out at the turf field and shoot around,” Petrovek said. “Sometimes I’d go down and shoot by myself.”

Petrovek’s workmanlike approach extended to the games.

“He understood being a great attackman started with playing great defense,” Curry said. “He rode very hard. He did the hard things you have to do to be successful, and he did them very well.”

“He’s an attackman, and (some of them) have got that reputation as being lazy on defense,” Yarmouth goalie Cam Woodworth said. “But nobody works harder than (Petrovek), and he got us so many possessions on his (defensive) rides.”

Curry, who stepped down at the end of the season after seven years at Yarmouth, said the Clippers were a reflection of Petrovek’s personality.

“They were a very hard-working, very unassuming and a very unselfish group of kids, and I think it all started with him,” he said.

Petrovek will try to win a spot on the varsity roster at the University of Denver as a walk-on.

“I wanted to go back to Colorado even if I didn’t play lacrosse,” he said. “I’m sure it’s a pretty difficult learning process at the Division I level. I hope I get a chance to be on the team and go from there.”

Staff Writer Paul Betit can be contacted at 791-6424 or at:

pbetit@pressherald.com