Brad Piffath, Class of ’24, recently committed to play lacrosse at Penn State.

It was a very stressful time trying to navigate the commitment process, but Piffath got lots of help from his coaches here at Malvern.

“It was very nerve wracking because sometimes you’re not sure what to say to coaches, or if they hit you with a question that catches you off guard,” Piffath said. “At Malvern I had a lot of help from the coaches and the seniors that were already recruited so it made it much easier.”

His coaches were the biggest influence in this process.

“I would say coach O’Grady just because he pushed me to get where I am, and he really helped me get in contact with a lot of coaches,” Piffath said.

When asked why he wanted to go to Penn State Piffath said,

“I chose Penn State because really, I always really liked the school. And then once I finally got to campus, all the coaches were amazing and it was just an awesome place to be at and I just knew as soon as I was there that I wanted to go there.”

Piffath is a top defender in his grade and had interest from many different schools but was able to narrow it down to three.

“My top three were Penn State, Villanova, and High Point. Those were the three that I was looking at the most,” Piffath said

Penn State is a place known to get a lot of Malvern guys for lacrosse.It was something he definitely noticed while he was there,

“I mean, you look at Penn State and you see how many (malvern) guys there are, it’s kind of like, why are all these people choosing to go to Penn State. So there’s obviously got to be something about it. Once I got up there and kind of figured it out,” Piffath said.

This process is one that many malvern guys have gone through and more will go through. When asked what advice he would give to a younger athlete going through this process he said,

“I feel like a lot of it goes into what you do before the process. You really want to work hard in the summer going up and then the season, to spring season before. So if you work hard and all that The process should play out pretty well for you,” Piffath said.