Lacek turning heads
SLIPPERY ROCK — Cory Lacek hardly made an impact on the recruiting scene three years ago, but he's been making quite an impact on the football field for Slippery Rock University.
The 6-foot-1, 235-pound junior defensive end ranks third in all of NCAADivisionIIwith 20 tackles for loss and is among the PSACleaders with 6Z\x sacks. Last year, he led the PSAC with 12 sacks.
While a senior at North Hills High, Lacek had only three sacks — two while playing at linebacker — and barely was noticed by SRUcoaches as they recruited Indians teammate and linebacker Bill Lamb.
"Cory had gotten hurt in preseason his senior year and slipped past almost everybody that year,"said SRUdefensive and recruiting coordinator Shawn Lutz.
Lacek suffered a broken leg inJune and spent most of his senior season trying to rebuild his lower-body strength.
A linebacker for North Hills his junior year, Lacek was moved to defensive end for his senior campaign. He wound up at West Liberty (W.Va.) State College and played middle linebacker there as a freshman.
The coaching staff at West Liberty was fired after that season, and Lacek looked to go elsewhere.
"I was only down there for a semester,"Lacek said. "It just didn't feel right. The coaches who recruited me were suddenly gone and I didn't like the direction things were going."
Still, Slippery Rock didn't call him. He called Slippery Rock.
"Cory was making some calls, looking for a place to go,"SRUcoach George Mihalik said. "When we heard from him, we had a lot of linebackers at the time, but noticed he had gotten bigger and stronger.
"We brought him in with the idea of making him a defensive end."
Lacek weighed 210 pounds in high school. He's at 235 now and the additional weight is all muscle.
Lutz calls Lacek the most disruptive defensive end he's coached in seven years atThe Rock.
Lacek wasn't thrilled with the idea of shifting back to defensive end when he first came to SRU.
"At middle linebacker, you're in on most of the plays, and I liked that,"he said. "But after a while, I realized I could make more impact plays from an end position."
Lacek has 18Z\x sacks through his first 18 games at The Rock and had his sights set on Matt Kinsinger's SRUcareer record of 32 sacks. Kinsinger played at SRUfrom 1995-98 and was the team's best lineman his senior season, the year The Rock reached the national semifinals.
Lacek already owns the school record of four sacks in one game. He has 31Z\x tackles for loss in his career. Kinsinger holds that record with 60.
"(Kinsinger) is still playing arena football and was a great player here,"Lacek said. "It would mean a lot to me to get those records."
