Tiger coach O'Neill shifts focus from soccer to lacrosse
By Dan Roem
It’s not exactly a change in scenery for Brentsville District coach Julie O’Neill, but it might as well be one.
A year after guiding the Tiger girls’ soccer team to its first-ever Virginia state tournament appearance, O’Neill has refocused her energy to developing the girls’ varsity lacrosse team as Sean Weddel and Megan Flowers are now running the soccer program.
While the Tiger girls absolutely mauled their opposition on the soccer field during the regular season last year en route to capturing regular season and tournament crowns in the Group AA Northwestern District, the lacrosse team is of a different breed despite hosting games on the same field as the soccer team.
That showed Monday night in an 11-3 shellacking delivered by Potomac Falls and first-year player Katie Baumgardner (five goals) upon O’Neill’s 2008 Tigers.
Brentsville showed resilience early on after clawing back from a 2-0 first-half deficit to tie the game up at 3-3 by halftime thanks to goals by senior Kelsey Minor, junior Lurah Phipps and sophomore Emily Johnson.
But in the second half, it was all Potomac Falls all the time.
“You can definitely tell we were off for spring break,” said O’Neill, holding a box of cupcakes that her worn out players feasted on after the 50-minute game.
Potomac Falls coach Allan Dacanay noticed Brentsville won the ground war in the first half, scooping up more loose balls than his squad.
“They played us pretty tough (in) the first half,” he said.
So Dacanay’s idea in the second half was to simply bring the game directly to Brentsville in the most up-close and personal way possible.
“‘If they can stop us, that’s fine,’” he recalled telling his girls at halftime. “‘We can pull back and try something else.’”
Stopping them proved to be the problem for Brentsville.
“They came out and pressured us a lot,” commented O’Neill.
Even though this is Baumgardner’s first year playing lacrosse, the Ohio State-bound all-star soccer goalie torched the home team in the second half with three consecutive goals in about five minutes.
“It’s just her athleticism,” said Dacanay.
While Baumgardner, who has earned a full athletic scholarship for college, had adjusted quickly to the sport, O’Neill is still working on square one with some of her players.
“They got to learn the basics first before they can do anything else.”
On the 2007 soccer team, stars like Meghan Flesch and Ashley Grant had been playing the sport for most of their lives and some, like Flesch, planned on continuing that in college.
Lacrosse players on the girls’ team count experience game-by-game level as opposed to years.
“The two sports are very different,” said O’Neill.
The lacrosse program at Brentsville has only existed since the 2005-06 school year. Seasoned played on the team have usually only been swatting their sticks for a year or two.
Of course there are exceptions.
Minor and senior defender Chelsea Kreuger have been on the team as long as it has existed and transfer senior midfielder Noelle Pavlovic already earned her varsity letter in the sport while playing in high school in Morgantown, West Virginia.
The sophomore Johnson has also played since middle school, which allows her to be even more tenacious around the battle area of mid-field.
“She’s a natural competitor,” said O’Neill. “You can’t teach that to the girls.”