Some people relax by fishing.

Some people relax by gardening.

Waterford High School junior Caleb Holdridge relaxes by stringing lacrosse sticks.

“As a kid, when I was bored, I would always just string and restring my stick,” Holdridge said. “I made a hobby of it. I started stringing sticks for money, then buying more sticks on my own. I just like messing around with them and finding new ways to make stuff.

“You can always find a way to make something different. There are multiple solutions to problems, finding out how to do something.”

Holdridge takes that belief onto the lacrosse field, looking for ways to score or set up teammates for a goal. He transferred from Texas to Waterford this school year and helped the Lancers win the Eastern Connecticut Conference Division II title and earn berths in both the league final and the CIAC Class M semifinals.

Holdridge was named The Day's 2018 All-Area Boys’ Lacrosse Player of the Year.

“He’s not about himself, he’s about making the right play,” Waterford coach Chris Landry said. “He can move the ball when he needs to and I think that’s what makes him so dangerous. He can beat you by himself or he can beat you passing.”

A Class M all-state selection, Holdridge led Waterford in both goals (61) and assists (63).

“That’s pretty awesome,” Landry said. “He played against some really good competition this year and he was able to hold his own. He really shined and made everyone better.”

It was Landry who set Holdridge down the lacrosse path. Landry, Holdridge’s uncle, took him and his other nephews to a lacrosse camp at Connecticut College when they were younger.

“He was about in third grade or something like that,” Landry said. “Two of them really took to it. … Caleb, who was the youngest, he was really drawn to it. He’s a pretty good athlete and could pick things up quickly, whether it be snowboarding or skateboarding.

“He did pretty well (early). You could kind of sense he could do pretty well with the sport.”

Holdridge returned home to Texas after that visit, a state so passionate about football that 10,000-seat stadiums don’t even rank among the 50 biggest in the state, according to an Aug. 2017 feature in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

“Somebody on my football team played lacrosse and he got me introduced into a program around me,” Holdridge said. “It was a lot of fun having something different and doing something really different than a lot of other kids. In Texas, it’s really just football and then baseball and basketball.

“I wanted to do something different. It had the stick skills of hockey and you can combine certain plays like basketball and hockey.”

Holdridge stopped playing football after fourth grade to stick with lacrosse and basketball. He went on to play the sport at the Greenhill School, a private school, in Addison, Texas. He still belongs to one of the state’s select travel programs. His family decided last summer that it wanted to move to Connecticut to be closer to family.

Landry set out to toughen up the Lancers' schedule after a 19-5 loss to Somers in last season's Class S final. He scheduled games against East Catholic, Notre Dame-West Haven and St. Joseph.

Holdridge helped Waterford (16-5) navigate through those new challenges. He scored the game-winner in overtime to give Waterford a 12-11 road win over eventual Class S champion St. Joseph (May 12). He also had a goal and two assists in a 9-3 win over perennial Fairfield County power Barlow in the Class M quarterfinals.

“This was a really good season,” Holdridge said. “Being moved from Class S to Class M was a huge jump and to make it to the semifinals was a huge accomplishment.”

Holdridge has already accepted a scholarship to play Division I lacrosse at Manhattan College and wants to pursue a degree in electrical engineering. One of his other passions, besides lacrosse and stringing sticks, is computers.

“I really like to study on my own and learn new coding,” Holdridge said. “At my old school, around eighth grade, I took these reverse engineering classes where you had to take stuff apart and take a software and coding class. It was really interesting to see both sides and how software works.”

n.griffen@theday.com

The Day's 2018 All-Area Boys' Lacrosse Team

Player

of

the

Year - Caleb Holdridge (Waterford)

Attack - James McCoy (East Lyme), Noah Reuling (Fitch), Rob Swenson (East Lyme)

Midfield - Andrew Alden (East Lyme), Logan Bowdish (Waterford), Mike Kolesnik (Old Lyme)

Defense - Kevin Close (Waterford), Henry Lahm (Old Lyme), Andrew Noorigian (East Lyme)

Goalie - Alex Medeiros (NFA)

Long-stick midfielder - Rich Galbo (East Lyme)

Faceoff specialist - Sam Kury (Montville), Chris Ladyga (NFA)

Utility - Emmett Brady (St. Bernard/Wheeler), Michael LaForte (Waterford)