Spirited Girls Lacrosse Team Heading into End of Season

Regardless of records, one thing remains constant with Central Regional’s girls lacrosse teams over the years: They’re consistently competitive.

"In the 13 years since I started the program, it’s been an honor and my pleasure to coach these girls," coach Patty Fortus said. "In 13 years, I never had a bad group of kids."

Opposing schools know they are in for a challenging day when they play against the Golden Eagles. And the Golden Eagles do it by balancing scoring, stickhandling and defense.

"We seem to be successful with that," Fortus said. "We try to keep everything in balance."

This year’s team takes a 5-9 record into its final match on May 19 at Barnegat. Fortus and her players will bid a farewell to only two seniors in the starting lineup — Ashley Stanfield and Janine Batin. Both play the home position, but do not carry the scoring like players at that position customarily do on most of the other teams.

Stanfield has 16 goals and Batin has 14 going into the season finale. But Stanfield also has nine assists, second highest on the team to junior center Jordan Garry’s 12. Garry also has 23 goals. Lauren Brinck, a junior, and Angelica Wiatrowski, a sophomore, share time in the other home position.

"We’re pretty young and in lacrosse that’s difficult," said Meredith Parliman, who has been an assistant coach the past six seasons.

But rookies are no longer rookies by the end of the season. The Golden Eagles next year will be loaded with seniors in the lineup and some juniors who are well-tested. The team lost their last three games by a combined four goals to Jackson Liberty, 14-12, in overtime; Point Pleasant Borough, 11-10, and Pinelands, 14-13.

"We have some phenomenal players, great kids who have worked really hard, stepped up tremendously," Fortus said. "A couple of girls were thrown into the fire. I look for them all to be stronger next year."

What also hurt was losing sophomore Jocelyn Mayo late in the season to a season-ending injury, when she led the team with 37 goals.

"We won the games we were supposed to win and were tough against teams that were better," Fortus said. "We didn’t lose to anybody by a score like 20-5. The kids’ skills have continued to improve. Every time they step on the field, they are able to do things in lacrosse better than they did eight weeks ago. They take smarter passes, better shots, able to read where each other is and are learning more about what the others are doing. They’re jelling."

That was most evident in games against Brick Township, which won the first meeting, 14-7, before Central Regional turned it around in a 13-9 victory. Attack wing Jess Sudia, a junior, leads by the numbers with 42 goals and seven assists. She also has 46 draw wins and 24 steals and Garry has 43 draw wins and 29 steals. Junior Brianna Carolan led in steals with 34 and is a runaway leader in intercepts with 25.

The goalkeeper — sophomore Alexa Padula — drew raves from her coaches for making the big step from the freshman team last season to starting in the varsity nets as a sophomore.

"We didn’t have anyone else and she did a great job improving," said Parliman.

Kristi Stebila, a junior, helps as a deep defender.

"She coaches the team back there," Fortus said. "She’s the captain of the defense as opposed to the goalkeeper, who usually is the captain."

Sophomore Allie Zambito with 24 steals and junior Haley Louth are the other starting defenders. Fortus said a "pleasant surprise" is the play of junior defender Alex Duarte, a transfer from Jackson Liberty.

With all of the returning players, Fortus and her team go into next season in good shape, although there have been consistently good numbers in tryouts where there were 75 candidates at the start of this season and more than 60 at the end.

Many honed their skills on a junior varsity team that went 10-2 under Colleen England-Hueg. The freshmen did not win as many games but coach Jackie Peterson developed some solid players.

"We may not need so many players next year and we always get good numbers, but we might wind up having a little more depth next season," Fortus said.