Girls Lacrosse: Steinberg Shines at Pleasantville

The experiences one gets playing for a coach when they are younger often can have an effect on a person for the rest of their lives.

In the case of girls lacrosse coach Allison Steinberg, those experiences have had a positive effect on her.

Steinberg, a 2000 Pearl River graduate, who played goalie at the Rockland County School, said the coaches she played for at Pearl River still have an effect on her to this day.

Steinberg played for current Pearl River Coach Laurie Mayernik her junior and senior years and played for Lauren Buonocore her sophomore year while manning the goal for the Pirates.

She said not only was it their knowledge of the game that she liked about playing for them but more importantly the way they approached the game.

“They have a true love for the kids they coached and the game itself,” Steinberg said. “They gave me the foundation to be successful. Their love for the game is why I am in coaching.”

Where Steinberg is today in the game of lacrosse is where most coaches can only dream about being. She was named Section 1 Conference III Coach of the Year this past spring in a season where the Panthers went 17-2 and made it to the Section 1 Class C finals.

Ironically there they lost to Mayernik and the Pirates 15-10 at Yorktown High School.

“If it was going to be anyone other than us, I’d want it to be them,” Steinberg said. “Coach Mayernik really deserves it. She’s built a great team over there.”

So has Steinberg at Pleasantville. She says a big reason for that is because of the effort her players have put into improving their game and what the community has done in building up the game in the younger age groups.

“The players have put a lot of time in getting better, they deserve all the credit,” Steinberg said. “And the parents have done a great job building up our youth program, which starts in first grade, so we are able to have a good feeder program which is necessary in order to be successful.”

What has helped Steinberg in being a successful coach besides the coaches she learned from is the position she played, goalie. Playing a position where you have to be like a coach on the field helped her make the transition from the field to the sideline a lot easier.

Besides playing at Pearl River, Steinberg also played in goal in college at SUNY-Binghamton. She played there for three years but didn’t play her senior season because she had ankle surgery thanks to an injury suffered during her junior season.

“Being a goalie helped me a lot because in that position you have to be vocal,” Steinberg said. “You have to let your teammates know what position they should be in. It’s a position where you can see the whole field so going from the field to the sideline was natural for me.”

At this early point in her career, it seems that Steinberg and Pleasantville are the perfect fit. Steinberg just completed her third season as the Panthers’ head coach before being an assistant coach her first two years with the team.

In Steinberg’s first year running the Panthers, they were league champions with a 15-1-1 overall record. They played in a tougher league her second season, didn’t win it but did earn the first sectional win in program history in a year they finished 10-7-1.

In her three years at the helm, Pleasantville has a glittering 42-10-1 record. What makes that mark even more astounding is that the Panthers just have been playing on the varsity for five years.

More importantly to Steinberg, it’s the way they have achieved their success that makes what the Panthers have done the last three seasons special.

“Our kids display good sportsmanship and its shows,” Steinberg said. “We have had other teams and officials tell us that we have a very classy program and that is what makes me the most proud.”