Women’s Lacrosse Continues to Dominate

The Varsity girls lacrosse team is off to a strong start, securing 9 wins out of 11 games and also the number one spot out of 39 teams in the area. With starting the season 1-1 in Indianapolis, Indiana, they came back to St. Louis with a chip on their shoulder.

The next game the wildcats came out hungry for a win, breezing past Pattonville in their home opener. Now that the wildcats got a taste of winning in St. Louis, they wanted it more than ever. Right before spring break, the girls traveled to Illinois to play arguably one of the toughest opponents they would face all season, O’Fallon Township. Still, the wildcats went in confident, hoping to avenge the loss of the previous year. Unfortunately, things did not seem to be in their favor any time during the game, and they ended up feeling the weight of a tough loss. Although this was not a fun one to lose, it flipped the switch for the team. The girls came back from spring break hungrier than ever to turn the team around. They knew their first game back was going to set the tone for the rest of the season, and the wildcats came out fighting.

Facing Ladue and their star player, a senior D1 commit Kaylon Buckner, they knew they had a challenge ahead of them. Ladue came out strong scoring the first 4 goals of the game, but the wildcats retaliated and did not stop until the final whistle, winning 16-12. With this win, the wildcats began to feel as if the pieces of the puzzle were slowly starting to come together.

The next week the wildcats faced John Burroughs and Cor Jesu, which, in previous years, have been quite the competition for them. In fact, in the history of the Westminster girls lacrosse program, the team has never beaten Burroughs. The girls really wanted that one for their coaches, and for Westminster as a whole, and it was shown through how they played.

Winning both tough games against Burroughs and Cor Jesu, the wildcats came into the weekend tournament against multiple teams from Kansas City, Missouri, riding a win streak of 3, ready to make it 6. And they did just that, beating all three teams by 5 goals or more. The players were really starting to get in the groove of their roles on the team.

Coming off of playing 5 games in 6 days, the girls had to be tired. Although they one day to rest, their next game was going to be a tough match. Facing the Kirkwood Pioneers, the wildcats had a lot of pressure on their shoulders. Now having a 6-game win streak, the cats knew that Kirkwood was going to come out hungry to take that away from them. The girls knew two things: they would have to play 50 minutes of engaged ball and shut down Kirkwood’s star, junior Cate Camenzind, who will go on to play D1 lacrosse at Georgetown University. And they did just that. Senior midfielder Samantha Huber, also scoring 2 goals for the cats, stayed with Camenzind the entire game, and although she did score a good amount, the shots she took were heavily pressured and hard to defend. Huber, along with the defense as a whole, stole the show from Kirkwood’s attack and pushed the wildcats to win. The attack came up big for the cats as well, putting 9 goals through the pipes and creating a gap between them and Kirkwood that the Pioneers could never seem to close.

The wildcat’s attack is very intimidating to many of the other programs in the area due to the fact that everyone is a scoring threat. Senior midfielder Jenna Galakatos leads the team in scoring with 23 goals, while junior attacker Dani Mabry is not far behind with 20. Additionally, the wildcats also have 3 other girls who have scored at least 10 goals on the season, seniors Haley Counts, Deanne Pfyl and Whitney Radloff. Radloff and Galakatos have been a necessity on the draw for the team, winning a combined 59 draws. On the defensive end of things, seniors Macie Daniels, Brittany Johnson and Jordan Haeusser have gotten used to playing with one another and formed an impenetrable wall for the defense. Daniels is second on the team with 38 ground balls, and averages 4 per game. Junior Katelyn Graham and Sophomore Reese Earlywine have both come up big for the wildcats in goal. Earlywine is starting to get into her comfort zone on the Varsity level and is performing phenomenally. This incredible defense is helping the wildcats pave their way to the top. The team is very positionally balanced throughout the field, which is a key part in their success. Come watch your lady wildcats throughout the season riding their 7-game win streak!