Girls’ Lacrosse Enters Season with Team-First Mindset
The girls’ lacrosse team will be led by first-year head coach Denise Wilson this spring. Wilson is a veteran coach in the sport and brings a team-first philosophy to the program.
“It is going to be a whole team effort to be successful this year,” she said. “You cannot be selfish in lacrosse or else you will not find success. We have 20 girls on the squad and they can all contribute to the program.”
Wilson and the Knights got off to a great start in building up that team camaraderie by going on their first-ever spring break training trip earlier this month. The team traveled to Florida and practiced daily in state-of-the-art facilities to work on game technique and drills while also working on strength and conditioning in the weight room.
“The trip to Florida was a great experience,” said Wilson. “Head boys’ lacrosse coach Byron Collins was so helpful in establishing field reservations for everyone and assistant girls’ lacrosse coach Kristen Armstrong was amazing in setting up all of the team-building activities. Along with practicing on the field, the girls did an extensive ropes course, a three-mile paddleboard course, and also went to Universal Studies and saw a college lacrosse game. We also scrimmaged against another high school while down there and it was awesome to see our girls have fun competing and playing the sport.”
Building up the team chemistry will be essential for the Knights as they try to progress over last season’s results of finishing the regular season with a .500 record and qualifying for the state playoffs. For that to happen, Gill will look to lone senior Courtney Hanks for leadership and also to junior Lauren Garcia, who was named to 2nd Team all-conference last season.
However, Wilson believes the most important aspect of the season is just instilling a love of the sport in this young program.
“It’s all about building hunger and passion for the game,” she said. “The hope is the girls love it and end up promoting the game and sport in many aspects of their lives. If you have excitement in the program then the team is bound to grow.”
Gill St. Bernard's School
Gill St. Bernard’s is a private, coeducational day school for students age three through grade 12, located in suburban New Jersey. Each of the three school divisions provides a rigorous, meaningful, and age-appropriate curriculum, and all students benefit from the environmental learning opportunities that exist on our 208-acre campus.