The boys of summer

On Sunday, July 15, 12 of Corey Lovrich’s closest friends, along with some parents and girlfriends, planted a memorial garden in front of the Lovrich’s West Hudson Street home as a way to honor their late friend.

“It was just like losing a brother,” Kyle Johnson said of Lovrich’s death on May 31, when he lost his battle with colon cancer. “We’re all best friends and we’ve all known each other since first grade or kindergarten. We’re pretty much family.”

Lovrich’s tight knit group of friends includes Kyle Johnson, Josh Gross, John Hamlet, Kyle Kempinski, Brian O’Toole, Mike Makashan, Chris Bonilla, Thomas Glazer, Mike Brady, Ryan Santhos, Ryan Elfeld and John Luerson.

Johnson said he and the other guys in the group took the news of Lovrich’s death pretty hard.

“We were actually on our way to visit him when we found out the news,” he said. “But we all stayed together and were with each other for that entire week after it happened.”

Johnson’s mother, Janice, said that the guys collaborated to make the memorial garden, and that they purchased a tree, bushes, flowers and had a customized stone made.

“It came out beautiful,” Janice Johnson said. “It was really nice, [all the boys] came out and the parents were there and collectively we were able to move some things around and we planted a beautiful kwanzan cheery tree.”

The stone reads: “Treasured in our heart you’ll stay, until we meet again someday.”

“One of our friend’s mom’s thought it would be a really good idea, so we collected money from everyone and put it together,” said friend Josh Gross. “We thought it would be nice and a good way to remember him.”

The group plays in a volleyball tournament in Corey’s name every Thursday on the beach at Riverside and Edwards boulevards, and wear shirts in his honor. The shirts are emblazoned with Lovrich’s last name on the back, his nickname “C-Love,” and his jersey number 88 on the front. Another group of friends play on Mondays.

“We’ve all been playing volleyball on the beach since we were in seventh-grade together,” Johnson said. “This is just one summer that Corey hasn’t been with us to play.”

Gross said guys have had a volleyball net setup on Laurelton Beach every summer since when they were younger.