May 31, 2007 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Local laxers stand out at national tourney
by TOM UTESCHER

Two Girls Inter-Ac League players, Emma Hamm of Baldwin School (left) and Colleen Magarity of Germantown Academy, will play for the U.S. this summer at the Women’s Lacrosse Under-19 World Championships.

As always, area lacrosse teams were well represented at the U.S. Lacrosse Women’s Division National Tournament, and in the 2007 event staged at Lehigh University last weekend, a pair of Germantown Academy players received honors of the highest order.

Senior midfielder Colleen Magarity was part of the 24-member U.S. Under-19 Team Training Squad that was undergoing its final audition session at the two-day tourney. After a full slate of games on Saturday, including an evening exhibition match in Lehigh’s turf-field stadium, Magarity learned on Sunday that she’d been named to the team that will play for the U.S. this summer at the Under-19 World Championships in Canada.

Her friendly rival from the Baldwin School, midfielder Emma Hamm, also made the squad, giving the Girls Inter-Ac League two representatives on the national team. The U.S. will be going for its third straight gold medal at the championship tourney, which is held every four years and this year will run from August 4-11 at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. The only other Pennsylvania player picked for the U.S. team is Radnor High School goalie Emily Geary.

Although the national tournament has always included collegiate and post-college players, the largest contingent at the tourney is the Schoolgirls Division, which is made up of high school underclassmen (seniors are placed in a separate category). Each year since 1994, the outstanding player in Schoolgirls competition has received the Heather Leigh Albert Award, and this year it went to GA’s Amanda Jones, a junior midfielder. Hamm, who won in 2006, helped present the award at halftime of the U.S. exhibition match on Saturday evening.

Playing against a team of all-stars culled from the high school seniors division, the U-19’s rolled to an 8-0 lead. Their rivals put in a pair of goals before halftime, but late in the period clouds began to roll in and the breeze stiffened. Conditions grew more ominous during the brief awards ceremony, and when the announcer informed the crowd that there would be no second half, everyone scurried for their cars as the wind swept clouds of dust across the parking lot.

Germantown Academy junior Amanda Jones poses with the Heather Leigh Albert Award, which she received after being named the outstanding player in the Schoolgirls Division at the U.S. Lacrosse Women’s National Tournament. (Photos by Tom Utescher)

Jones’ team in the Schoolgirls division, Upper Atlantic 1 (PA & NJ), had gone through its Friday schedule undefeated, beating always-formidable Mid-Atlantic 1 (MD & VA) along the way. These two teams met again in the divisional championship game late on Sunday afternoon, and were neck-and-neck through most of the match.

Jones recorded an early goal and an assist, and then scored again midway through the second half to give UA-1 what would be its last lead of the game, 6-5. In addition to marking well up-and-down the field and double- teaming effectively, Mid-Atlantic proved a little more adept at retrieving ground balls than the locals. The southerners rallied to win, 8-6, thanks in part to some near misses by UA-1, which had two shots hit the goal pipe and another strike the crossbar.

Appearing at the tournament on Upper Atlantic’s fourth team were GA’s Heather Rittenhouse, goalkeeper Robin McDowell of Penn Charter, and Springside School’s Nora Langan and Julie Platt. Another GA player, Kate Henrich, was on the UA-8 team. Competing in the Seniors Only division were PC’s Kelsey McDowell and Anne McKenna, and Germantown’s Nikki McCurdy. Kelsey McDowell’s “Yellow” team won this division, in which teams were not made up strictly according to regional affiliations.