Although they had to contend with some rainy weather in the scheduled opener, there was nothing rusty about the girls lacrosse team when it finally started the season Monday.
Three days after getting rained out, Hightstown came out and defeated Hamilton's Nottingham High School, 19-1.
Katie Hackett recorded three goals and two assists. Melissa Ladd added two goals and two assists.
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It was an impressive debut for a Hightstown team that went 5-11 last year and suffered several key losses to graduation.
"We graduated six seniors, including 220 career goal scorer Shelby Wallace (81 goals in 2010) and Christa Laustsen, a 131 career goal scorer (34 last year)," noted Hightstown Coach Julie Reisig, who is is her seventh season.
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Other graduation losses were goalie Shaina Marfil goalie, as well as players Mary Astarita, Cait Alexander and Teresa Guarino.
"We return ten players to the lineup, but return only two seniors," Reisig said. "We have depth in every position, except we are not returning a varsity goalie. I went with a freshman goalie, Emily LeBlanc, who is very athletic."
Playing on the defense in front of LeBlanc are Jessica Lenzo, Kelly Delaney, Janyl Ventura, Sam Santos, Becky Zahora and Carey Ladd. A few of those girls could also play in the midfield.
Melissa Ladd, Rachel Taylor and Nikki Brooks play midfield. Ashley Kosik, Melissa Colavita, Katie Hackett, Caroline Noebels, Nicole Kerr, Courtney Prunchak and Cate Douglass are midfield/attack players.
Reisig said she was impressed with the way her girls played in the opener. This followed a successful scrimmage season, which included a 9-0 win over a pretty good Lawrence team.
Hightstown is scheduled to play at Hamilton's Steinert High School today, Wednesday. A real test will come Friday, when the team plays at Northern Burlington Regional High School in Mansfield.
"We should be quite competitive in our new division," Reisig said. "We are looking to develop a better team defense this year and spread the scoring. Ultimately, we aim to improve our seedings for the tournaments and go deeper in the Mercer County and the state tournament. I have a lot of very good young players that I am looking to develop."
The game against Nottingham certainly was a good start.
