When Michael Koster first started playing lacrosse with Nutley Recreation at the age of four, his mother Michele had one preference, that her son not play goalie.
“I played attack for three days at the rec program and I hated it. I hated it. I didn’t like it,” Michael Koster said. “I told my mom I hated it and the one position she told me she didn’t want me to play was goalie. So the one position I told my mom I wanted to play and that I liked was goalie. And that’s how it all started.”
It was a decision that helped lead to one of the greatest lacrosse careers ever at Nutley High School. The last game of Koster’s high school career was on Monday, June 15, when he participated in the inaugural Kirst Cup All-Star Game at Kean University, which spotlights the state’s top players.
It’s the culmination of an incredible four-year run where Koster not only rewrote the Nutley Boys Lacrosse record book, but put himself in elite company statewide. On May 18, Koster became just the fourth goalie in New Jersey history to record 1,000 career saves when he stopped 13 shots in a 5-2 defeat against Delaware Valley.
Koster, who was also a fine wrestler during the winter seasons, finished his high school career with 1,005 saves.
“Honestly, hearing it (again weeks later) and hearing it from my parents and hearing it from my teammates, I can’t even put it into words,” said Koster. “It’s something that I know I’m going to have cemented for forever, knowing that I did it.”
“It was a goal he set prior to the season and once the season started, he just played lacrosse and never asked me about it,” head coach Mike Salvatelli said. “He was just playing the best he could every game, which is part of his personality as a competitor to just put his head down and work. He was just focused on his team winning games.”
Salvatelli knew that he potentially had a special goalie coming up through the rec department and it didn’t take long for Koster to cement his place as the Raiders’ starter. In the season opener of his freshman year, Koster made 19 saves in a 12-10 victory over Cedar Grove. It proved to be the first of 71 consecutive starts.
After making 221 saves as a freshman and 236 as a sophomore, it became clear that Koster was in line to do unprecedented things at Nutley.
“He had played at such a high level in middle school that coming into high school, we knew that he’d be a special goalie for us,” said Salvatelli. “ He put in the time to be great. He played club, he trained on his own. When that all happens, you start to see the potential and then he just got better every year.”
Despite not always having the most talented team around him, Koster helped lead the Raiders to back-to-back state tournament appearances his junior and senior seasons. As a senior, he made a career high 310 saves for Nutley, which went 9-10.
Koster cited several youth coaches who were instrumental in his development, a group that included his father, Tim. But the biggest influence was youth coach Scott DeCarlo.
DeCarlo, who starred as a goalie at Nutley, turned down several college offers after high school, instead electing to become a U.S. Army Ranger. DeCarlo served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom during his seven years in the Armed Forces before returning home to coach before passing in 2017.
That close relationship initially had Koster looking to go into the military after high school instead of playing lacrosse in college. That changed after a heartfelt conversation with DeCarlo’s mother Lesley, last year.
“I was very close family friends with (Scott and his parents),” an emotional Koster said. “I was thinking at the time that I wanted to follow in his footsteps because he ended up putting the stick down and he went into the force.
“One day, his mother sat me down and she was like ‘I don’t want you to follow in the same path.’ She told me she wants me to have an education. She wants me to go further. She wants me to play at the collegiate level.”
Despite getting involved a little later than normal in the recruiting process, Koster found a home when he committed to Westminster College, a Division III program in New Wilmington, PA.
According to Koster, he first reached out to Westminster and its head coach Anthony Accardi. After Koster made the six hour drive for a visit, he heard from Accardi that they had one scholarship left and they wanted to use it on him.
This season, the 6-foot-1 Koster played at 155 pounds after wrestling primarily at 140 during the winter. With room to grow physically, Salvatelli believes the best is yet to come for him.
“Knowing him, he’s going to put in the work, he’s going to watch film and he’s going to hit the weight room,” Salvatelli said. “I think he’s going to be that much better by the time he graduates college.”
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Jason Bernstein | Observer Sports Writer
Jason Bernstein joined The Observer as its sports writer in March 2022, following the retirement of Jim Hague. He has a wealth of sports-writing experience, including for NJ Advance Media (nj.com, The Jersey Journal, The Star-Ledger.)