Daniel Hand High School Girls Lacrosse Has Proud Tradition To Uphold

With a proud tradition to uphold and the loss of a brilliant senior class from last
year’s SCC championship team, the Hand girls lacrosse team will be challenged
to compete this year, but they’ve won their first two games and are determined
to forge ahead.

In a conversation before Friday’s home opener, a 12-7 win over Hamden, which followed Wednesday's 13-6 win over Branford, head coach Kevin Siedlecki said the program, which started in the mid-1980s under former coach Pat McCahil, has a lot of pride and tradition like all Hand athletics.

Coach Siedlecki started as an assistant coach in 2005 and has been head coach since 2008. Last year’s team was 18-3, ranked fourth in the state and won the SCC championship with wins over West Haven, Hamden and Cheshire. They lost the quarter finals of the state championship to Glastonbury.

The team will be hard pressed to make up for the loss of a group of seniors who include All Americans Emily Jablonski and Kaila Gottlick. “We have only six kids who played varsity before the Branford game so there’s some early season jitters,” Coach Siedlecki said. “There was some sloppy play and missed connections and a lot of individual efforts to make up for the mistakes. The team hasn’t quite come together yet but as soon as we hit our stride we’ll be very strong again this year.”

While Coach Siedlecki bemoans the loss of his senior stars, he lauds goalie Christy Forrest. “She was all state last year and she’s gotten a lot better, she’s coming out of the cage more and has great clears, which was a weakness before,” he said. “We need to find some scorers to replace Emily Jablonski, who had 80 goals last year. But Hannah Morgan is back and she was in the top five last year and Marykate McNulty and Kara McHugh are strong."

The three led the scoring in the first two games with Jablonski scoring five goals in each game and McNulty and McHugh two per game.

This year’s co captains, seniors Hannah Morgan, Carly Floyd and Lauren Oswald, are also looking ahead to a strong season. “Last season we had a bunch of great seniors but I think we’re going to be better this year, because we’re going to be more of a team,” Morgan said.  “A lot of new players who didn’t show themselves last year will step up to the plate and show how good they really are."

“Rather than rebuilding this year, we’re reloading. We have a deep bench and we’ve been adding some new defensive plays and strategies that will benefit us this season,” Floyd said. “The new defensive plays and strategies include how we’re going to crash on ball and protect our goalie and on offense it’s figuring out where everyone will be at certain times and slowing down the ball,” Oswald said.

This season’s schedule includes tough games against Cheshire, Guilford, Glastonbury and Greenwich. “We’re focused on the Cheshire league game on April 30, then we’ll look ahead to the states and SCC,” Coach Siedlecki said. “We’ll try to sweep the league but there will be big challenges and we’ll have to battle it out on the field.”

Next up on the schedule are home games against Cheshire and Simsbury Tuesday and Friday.