Eagles Lacrosse Leaning on Senior Class, Downs Middletown

Wethersfield girls lacrosse captains (l-r) Logan Lisella, Jaime Condon, Riley Ford, Ava Heimgartner have helped pave the way as the Eagles have won seven of eight games this spring. 

Wethersfield girls’ lacrosse defeated Middletown 20-7 on a rain-soaked Cottone Field last Monday, April 25.
           
The 20 goals was a season-high for an Eagles squad that improved to 6-1 this spring. 
           
Sophomore Sadie Ruiz led the way offensively, scoring four goals and dishing out three helpers.
           
Two minutes into the game, Nicole Partridge got the scoring-party with the first of her three goals. Ruiz netted her first a minute later as the home team quickly jumped out to a multi-goal lead and never looked back.
           
“Our goal every game is to come out and have the first goal and today they did that. That set the tone,” said WHS head coach Nicole Silva.
           
Senior captain Logan Lisella, who had four goals, tallied her first at the 20-minute mark of the first half and 20 second later Partridge added her second of three goals, putting the Eagles up 4-0. 
           
Lisella is captaining the team with Jaime Condon, Riley Ford, and goalie Ava Heimgartner. 
           
The quartet is part of a seasoned senior class, featuring nine players that have helped lay the foundation for the program. 
           
Silva has been coaching the seniors since the sixth grade and has had a front row seat as the group developed through the town’s feeder program.
           
A year ago, they were juniors during the school’s first official varsity lacrosse season when the team won 11 of 15 regular season games.  
           
Now in year two, the team has picked up where they left off and are clicking on all cylinders, having outscored their first seven opponents by a combined 49 points.
           
“These girls started the lacrosse program. They have been here since day one,” added Silva. “They have actually built the program.”
           
Along with the years of playing lacrosse, the seniors have the added benefit of playing other sports together—mainly field hockey in the fall—which creates additional chemistry on the field.
           
“It helps a lot,” said Lisella. “We know each other’s personalities and that makes our team stronger.”
           
Lisella added that the bond is so strong that the girls use non-verbal communication, such as eye contact and head nods, saying, “When you play with each other for four or five years you know how everyone plays and their skills and all their little tricks.”
           
Silva has been impressed with the team’s ability to have that sixth sense on the field, adding, “It’s a pleasure to watch them. At this point I can tell who is going to pass the ball and who is going to score just by looking at them.”
           
Condon handles the face-off duties for the Eagles, winning a majority of the draws against Middletown. She also added a goal with 8:41 to play in the first half when she stole a pass and took it the length of the field before burying a shot to make it 10-3.
           
“Everyone always says ‘you win the face-offs, you win the game’,” said Condon, who added the team is playing with confidence. 
           
“We’ve grown up playing lacrosse together. When the league first started in Wethersfield we were all beginners on the same team and developed our skills together,” said Condon.
           
Ford scored late in the first half and again early in the second half, giving the Eagles a commanding 17-4 advantage. 
           
She concurred that the team is best when they come out of the gates quickly. 
           
“The first thing we always say in the locker room is ‘first goal’ and that sets the tone for everything,” said Ford. “Getting the first goal really helped us and winning the draw really helped set the tone for the whole game.”
           
All told, nine players scored and ten players helped contribute points.
           
It was the sixth time in seven games that the team scored 11 or more points. 
           
One the back end, Heimgartner has been the voice on the defense. 
           
Heimgartner says that communication has been the key on the defensive side. 
           
“We’ve become such a close-knit family and I think that’s why we’ve succeeded so well is because we work together as one unit,” said Heimgartner. “We’re always talking consistently in the back, helping each other and that makes me more comfortable.”
           
Sophomore goalie Hailey Washington is splitting time with Heimgartner, earning varsity minutes in goal as she gets extensive time on JV as well. 
           
“[Hailey] has really stepped up the communication and is becoming a leader on the team,” said Silva, who added it’s a luxury to have two strong goalies. “Ava brings the team up from anything. When we have a couple of down moments or give up a couple of goals, Ava is the one in the back there telling everyone what to do and how to do it.”
           
Protecting the crease for the goalies are starting defenders Ella Agler, Brooke Arnold, and Zoe Martin. 
           
The defense helped slow down prolific Blue Dragon captains Abby Johnson (three goals) and Aliyannah Makein (two goals). 
           
Johnson and Makein are captaining Middletown along with defensive captain Isabella Latina.
           
The loss dropped the Blue Dragons 2-3.
           
As for the Eagles, they hope to keep the lacrosse locomotive rolling into May. 
           
“Our goal for every game is to come out fierce, first to every ball, and to make sure that we are having clean passes and catches,” said Silva, “[The players] all have a high lacrosse IQ at this point and they are a really close-knit group. It’s easier to coach a group of girls that know if someone is having a bad day, they pull them up. It’s phenomenal to see.” 
           
​Wethersfield closed the week with a 15-3 win at Lewis Mill, improving to 7-1, and the team’s next home game is slated for Monday, May 9 (4 p.m.) at Cottone Field.