July 2, 2008

by Clare Lochary, Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff

Marist senior Ali Carnabuci scored the fastest goal in NCAA women's lacrosse history - ever.

In the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference semifinal against Canisius on April 25, she caught a pass from junior Stephanie Garland off the draw and stuffed goalie Allison Daley just eight seconds into the game. It was the first step in a tear through the MAAC tournament that resulted in Marist's first league title and NCAA tournament play-in bid.

"I got it, turned around, and Ali was waiting in front of the goal. It was a great way to start," said Garland.

Things moved fast for the Red Foxes in 2008. Marist head coach Tanya Kotowicz was hired 29 days before her first game.

"I don't think I really took time to think about it. I just did it," said Kotowicz, a first-time head coach. "I decided to leave California and was in New York a week later. It was all so fast."

The warp-speed timeline was precipitated by the departure of former Marist head coach Noelle Cebron Powell. Powell parted ways with the Red Foxes due to violations of Marist athletic department policies.

The players were understandably devastated, especially the seniors. They didn't know - and still don't know - why Powell left, and the season was in jeopardy. But Marist athletic director Tim Murray managed to lure Kotowicz, a Red Foxes assistant during the 2006 season, back to Poughkeepsie to keep the team from breaking apart like a ship hitting an iceberg.

Thus Kotowicz, 26, left her assistant position at St. Mary's (Calif.) and inherited a traumatized team. Besides the coaching change, the Red Foxes had to shake off their 2007 campaign, which included an 0-4 record in one-goal games, the last of which was an overtime loss to Le Moyne in the MAAC championship.

"They had just been going through so much that year. It was totally like a battered child. It's so sad," said Kotowicz. "They were never told what happened to their coach. I wanted to give them structure."

Kotowicz's first order of business was to reestablish trust among the players.

"Her door was always open. I would never go in there and be alone. There's always girls in there, talking to her," said Gardner. "We always had a planned-out practice. You knew what was going to happen, no surprises. All she asked was to show up to practice ready to play and leave everything at the edge of the field."

But Kotowicz wanted to be a champion, not a caretaker. She tore up the playbook and implemented a motion offense that relied on a team effort to keep the attack decentralized and difficult to stop.

"All my plays, any type of goals that we did, were off a motion instead of a specific play. You always know what's going to happen if something goes wrong," Kotowicz said. "That gives them the ability to point out a problem."

The players responded to Kotowicz's combination of structure and innovation.

"We always said we wanted to do a motion, but it took some effort. Once we realized we could trust each other and realized everyone on the team could score, it was really hard to mark us," said Gardner, who was second on the team with 31 goals and 20 assists.

There were some bumps along the way, of course. Entering the MAAC tournament, the Red Foxes were 8-8 and coming off a 11-10 loss to Le Moyne. But then came Carnabuci's record-setting goal, a 15-10 win over Canisius and a second-half comeback to beat top-seeded Fairfield, 10-9, in the conference final.

Marist's apparent penchant for drama returned in the NCAA play-in game, where it fell to Colgate, 19-18, after mounting a five-goal, second-half comeback. Still, it was a historic season for the Red Foxes, one that both Kotowicz and her players are eager to repeat and improve upon.

Marist has not yet signed Kotowicz for 2009, but both parties seem amenable to it. With a MAAC title in her first season, Kotowicz is built for speed. She only started playing lacrosse her senior year of high school after a knee injury ended her elite soccer prospects. By the end of her college career, she was a two-time team captain at UConn.

She was also a budding lacrosse strategist.

"It's kind of dorky, but ever since I started playing college lacrosse, I have been keeping every idea I ever came across in a notebook," said Kotowicz.

The tome even has a name - The Beautiful Mind of Lacrosse Book. Anyone else wondering what else she has in there?