C.W. Post Seniors Can Bookend Careers with Titles
by Chris Gentilviso | Special to Lacrosse Magazine Online
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Midfielder Brianne Jackolski and six classmates won the NCAA Division II title as freshmen and look poised to repeat the feat as seniors after beating Adelphi in a shootout. © Joe Rogate |
After defeating the No. 1 team in the nation, what more can a
head coach do to motivate her club?
After snapping Adelphi’s 32-game winning streak last
Saturday, C.W. Post women's lacrosse coach Meghan McNamara had an
answer.
“Let's take from it and let's keep moving on,”
McNamara told her team. “Are you ready?”
With their new No. 1 IWLCA ranking in hand, the Pioneers were on
the same page. A win on May 1 guarantees nothing in getting to
their desired destination -- the NCAA championship game May 23 in
Gettysburg, Pa.
“What she said just made everyone want to work that much
harder,” said junior attacker Michelle Fucich, who tallied
three goals and five assists in the 21-16 win. “She's right.
Our season isn't over.”
Performances like Fucich’s were a product of strong
preparation. Entering last Saturday’s contest, the Pioneers
sensed the challenge standing before them.
Adelphi’s résumé was well known. It was a
defending national-championship team, with no visible signs of
slowing down. That’s when McNamara and the players formed
their vision for how to slow down the Panthers.
“During that entire week of practice, we were preparing to
kind of pick apart their zone defense,” senior midfielder
Brianne Jackolski said. “Working inside and working the
go-arounds wide because they come out to pressure you. By keeping
it spread and using skip passes, we knew they'd have to run and we
could tire them out.”
With nine and a half minutes remaining, Adelphi had pulled within
16-15. But C.W. Post clamped down, reeling off five goals down the
stretch to stand on the winning end of a frenzied finish.
Late-game grit has not been necessary all that often for C.W. Post
this season. Behind that blistering attack, the Pioneers have won
13 games in double-digit fashion. In their seven East Coast
Conference games, they have raced to a plus-114 scoring margin.
They followed the Adelphi win with an 18-13 triumph of Dowling on
Wednesday to claim the ECC championship.
“We want to always keep the intensity up because when we
play those harder teams, we don't want to let down at all,”
Jackolski said.
With that frame of mind, Jackolski and her six senior teammates
have positioned themselves to return to the spot they stood at the
end of their freshman season – winners of the Division II
national championship.
In the eyes of McNamara, the entire team has followed their
lead.
“They've been getting back, but not completely getting there
over the past two years,” McNamara said. “But this
year, they've seen it. They've learned from past experiences --
what worked, what didn't, how they felt, what really drove
them.”
At moments when the Pioneers may be unsure of how to dig for that
championship-level drive, there is arguably no better source than
McNamara. In her four seasons as a player at the University of
Maryland, the Terrapins went 83-4, en route to four national
championships.
“My teammates would laugh at me, but I had a pretty carefree
attitude,” McNamara said. “I never was hung up on
anything. All I knew is that we were supposed to play, and whatever
our coaches told us, we were supposed to do. We'd just give
everything that we had.”
As McNamara now does the telling, it’s her players who are
giving everything.
“You almost feel just comfortable at where you are, and she
doesn't want that,” Jackolski said. “She wants you to
push, knowing from her own experience that you need to push harder
and work harder.”
Division II News and Notes
No. 3 Lock Haven is on track to make another
strong NCAA tournament run after defeating West Chester 16-6 to
capture its second straight PSAC conference championship. The
Eagles’ defense was stout, headed by 12 saves from goalkeeper
Kira Nuttall … On the men’s side,
after suffering its only loss of the season against
Dowling, C.W. Post has rebounded with three
straight wins, capped by an 11-9 victory last Saturday over
then-No. 2 Mercyhurst. Junior Mike
Messina and sophomore Eddie Plompen paced
the defending national champions with hat tricks, leading to the
Lakers’ first home loss since March 10, 2007. That win helped
the Pioneers jump from No. 5 in the polls to a tie for the No. 2
spot with that same Golden Lions club, which has the head-to-head
edge.
