Jesse and Jake Bernhardt

Jake Bernhardt jogged toward the center of Byrd Stadium on April 20 for a captains’ meeting before the Terrapins men’s lacrosse team took on Yale. Jesse Bernhardt followed two steps behind with an almost identical gait.

Since Jesse was born — 355 days after Jake — the brothers have rarely been farther apart than that. In fact, the only time they haven’t shared a room was the year Jake played for the Terps before Jesse arrived in College Park.

They both had the same group of friends growing up, both played football and lacrosse in high school and will co-head coach lacrosse at a private school in Florida next year.

And Saturday, they’ll both be standing on Byrd Stadium’s turf together one last time as players, celebrating their Senior Day against Colgate.

“It’s nice going out and that he’s here,” Jesse said. “It probably makes my mom the happiest to know we’re going out together.”

Jake and Jesse aren’t the type of brothers who openly discuss their emotions to each other. Their father, Jim, jokes that they rarely talk, despite spending their entire lives together.

But both brothers admit they are extremely close, hardly spending any time apart. And there’s little doubt that they’ve been instrumental in each other’s lacrosse careers.

Growing up in Florida, where lacrosse players were few and far between, the brothers didn’t always have teams to play on or coaches to play for. They had each other.

Now they’re senior leaders on the No. 7 team in the nation and have reached back-to-back national title games. Jake, a fifth-year senior who redshirted last season due to injury, has tallied 58 points during his career and is a three-year starter. Jesse was a 2012 ACC Defensive Player of the Year and is a Tewaaraton Award nominee, one of 25 players in the running for the title of nation’s best player.

And all that success began with one-on-one lacrosse in a small backyard.

“They would spend plenty of time back there, just them two,” Jim said. “They didn’t always have anyone else. But they kept at it, and they’ve turned it into something pretty special.”

ANGRY NEIGHBORS

A lacrosse goal sat in a small yard next to an inground swimming pool in football-crazed Longwood, Fla. It was weathered and beaten — probably the only one in the entire town — but it got plenty of use.

Neither Jake nor Jesse played much lacrosse before the family moved from upstate New York to the Sunshine State. They were just 8 and 7 years old, respectively, when their dad accepted a position as football coach at Bishop Moore High School in Orlando, Fla., in the mid-1990s, and they had been enrolled in youth football leagues.

Eventually, though, they became hooked on the other sport their dad played at Hofstra in the mid-1970s.

Then-Loyola coach Dave Cottle ran a yearly lacrosse camp in Orlando. Jim, who played against Cottle in college, took Jake and Jesse to those camps a few years after the family moved, in hopes of simply providing his sons with a fun activity. The brothers became immersed in the sport, attending the camp each year and eventually starring in it.

“They were special kids, very athletic, really good kids, too,” Cottle said. “They would come up to the camps each year and really took to the sport.”

But there was a problem: The camp only lasted three days. They couldn’t find club teams or clinics in Florida, and lacrosse wasn’t even sanctioned by the state as an official high school sport.

When Cottle and his staff of various college coaches headed north, the Bernhardts had nowhere to play organized lacrosse.

“That was basically our season,” Jake said. “Just those three days.”

So Jake and Jesse took to that lonely lacrosse net. They spent hours on end in their backyard, honing their skills and building a deep-seated bond.

Their younger brother Jared, seven years Jesse’s junior, wasn’t old enough to compete with his brothers. So Jake and Jesse would be alone, firing shots into the net or trying to dodge one another.

“We kind of just started doing it that way,” Jesse said.

That was fine when the brothers were middle schoolers, just beginning their lacrosse careers. But soon they outgrew that tattered net in the little yard.

The brothers’ missed shots, once harmless lobs, turned into dangerous projectiles as they entered high school. They hurled errant shots past the net and into the yard next door. Once, a neighbor found about 20 lacrosse balls in his hedges while working in his yard.

“As they got a little older, a little stronger, our neighbors weren’t too thrilled,” Jim said, laughing. “At one point I said, ‘We may have to take this goal down. They’re going to have us arrested.’”

Jake and Jesse were typically respectful kids, their dad said. But upset neighbors weren’t going to keep them from using that lacrosse net.

DUAL-TALENTS

When Jake decided he wanted to continue to play both football and lacrosse at the next level, Lake Brantley High School in Altamonte Springs, Fla., became the obvious decision. Naturally, Jesse followed the next year.

Choosing which sport to play in college, though, wasn’t so easy. The Bernhardts established themselves as lacrosse standouts in College Park. But in Longwood, they built a reputation on the gridiron as well.

Jake was a running back and quarterback, while Jesse played linebacker.

“Our first love was football,” Jesse said. “That was the first thing that we ever started playing. I think it translated well to the lacrosse field.”

In Florida, playing football meant something. The way their father, who currently works as a special assistant to Bill O’Brien in the Penn State football program, puts it, they competed against plenty of players who football fans know about.

In the 2006 Florida 6A state championship game, the Bernhardt brothers competed against Miami Northwestern Senior High School, which included five future University of Miami players, including quarterback Jacory Harris. Miami Northwestern beat Lake Brantley, 34-14, but nonetheless, the brothers had garnered plenty of recognition for their performance. They even fielded interest from several low-level Division I football programs.

Still, Jake and Jesse had even more success on the lacrosse field. They were both All-Americans in a sport they loved to play. Eventually, when Jake was a junior and Jesse was a sophomore, they both decided pursuing lacrosse would lead to a more fruitful college career.

“We thought, you know, lacrosse presented us a chance to win a championship,” Jake said. “And compete at the highest level.”

Their decision left Jim in a difficult position. He contemplated leaving his assistant coaching job at Central Florida and moving back to New York. The lacrosse competition in Florida couldn’t compare to his old home, and he wanted his sons to prepare the best they could to play in college.

But then he realized something: Jake and Jesse hadn’t become top-flight recruits by competing against other high schools or club teams.

They got to where they were by playing each other.

“[Jake,] you’re the best offensive player in the state. [Jesse,] you’re the best defensive player in the state,” Jim told his two older sons. “Keep practicing against each other.”

The brothers were top-tier prospects, but Cottle — then coach at this university — and the Terps had an edge while recruiting the two brothers. The coach did, after all, help build the foundation of their lacrosse careers.

So Cottle aggressively pursued Jake. He wanted to have one of the top midfielders in the nation play in College Park. But he also understood the brothers’ close-knit relationship. He knew they were likely a package deal. If he could get Jake commit to the Terps, he figured Jesse, an All-American long pole, would follow suit.

He was right. “Knowing [Jake] was here obviously had something to do with my decision to come here,” Jesse said.

LAST CHANCE

When Jesse arrived in College Park in fall 2009, he moved into a dorm with Jake. The next year, they moved into an apartment together and have roomed together ever since.

Just as Jake and Jesse had complemented each other during their time in the backyard on offense and defense, the duo worked out efficient living arrangements.

“He cooks; I clean,” Jesse said, smiling at his brother.

The brothers have always fit together perfectly. So when Jake injured his shoulder last season — originally slated to be his senior year — and was sidelined through the regular season, he knew he should redshirt and play another year with his brother.

He could have come back and played in the NCAA tournament. But then he would have left the program a year earlier than Jesse. He wanted to spend one last season as a Terp and end his nonprofessional career the way he started it: with Jesse.

“It all comes back to the fact that we’ve always been together,” Jake said. “We’ve always had the same friends. It was a pretty easy decision.”

Not to mention, the decision gave Jake another shot at a championship under coach John Tillman, after playing in the 2011 loss to Virginia and watching from the sideline in last season’s loss to Loyola on Memorial Day.

But for a few moments Saturday, before the Terps battle Colgate in their final contest before the NCAA tournament, the focus won’t be on the Terps’ title hopes. It’ll be on honoring the team’s nine seniors and the time they have devoted to the program.

For Jesse and Jake, the day will carry a bit more weight. They’ll be celebrating a lifelong journey and a uniquely significant relationship.

“For them to be there together, it’ll be special,” said Jim, who will be in Byrd Stadium with his sons Saturday. “It’s going to be hard not to cry.”

When the Senior Day festivities end and the Terps championship bid concludes — successful or not — the brothers will slowly descend from the spotlight. They won’t separate from each other, however.

They’ve both been drafted to play Major League Lacrosse, which will separate them during the summer. Jesse will stay in this state and suit up with the Chesapeake Bayhawks, while Jake will play for the Hamilton Nationals in Ontario, Canada.

Their day jobs, though, will keep them together. Both brothers accepted positions as co-head lacrosse coaches at Windermere Preperatory High School in Windermere, Fla. They’ll return south to continue to grow the sport they love in their home state and continue to push each other.

“We look forward to it,” Jesse said. “We get to work to together again, live together again, share a room together again.”

First, though, they have a job to do. Jake and Jesse didn’t spend all those hours in the backyard during their childhoods envisioning losing back-to-back national championships. They want to win one.

And the Terps are relying on the brothers’ relationship — and the energy and passion it exudes — to lead them there.

“If you have a older or younger brother, you always have someone to compete against, and that’s why [Jake and Jesse] are so competitive,” Tillman said. “Those two guys bring out the best in each other.”

sportsdbk@gmail.com