May 15, 2010
UConn women making strides
by Kevin Henkin/
The UConn women's lacrosse team made strides in 2010.
It can’t be easy being a part of a losing team at the University of Connecticut. Not when so many of the other teams there have raised the bar of success.
Consider that the UConn women’s basketball team has cemented its status as the best college program in the history of the sport, while the men’s program remains among nation’s elite. The UConn soccer and track teams excel year after year, as do the volleyball and field hockey teams. Even the football program has emerged out of Division 1-AA to become a D-I regional power. These days, keeping up with your athletic peers in Storrs is tougher than ever.
Two years ago, the women’s lacrosse team represented the opposite end of the school’s athletic spectrum at UConn. Coming off a 1-15 season – by far the worst record since the team’s inception in 1997 -- players had become accustomed to losing. Many had lowered their commitment to the team to match their decreased confidence and expectations.
In July of 2008, the school sought to re-inject passion into the floundering program, hiring Angela McMahon, formerly a standout player at Northwestern and more recently an assistant coach at UMass.
In McMahon’s first season, 2009, the Huskies improved their record marginally to 3-13 but also demonstrated several areas of notable gains. The team defense, in particular, showed renewed signs of life, reflected by 50 fewer goals (264 vs. 214) surrendered than the year before.
It’s the current season, however, that shows just how much of an impact McMahon has had on the team. If any doubters remained, they were silenced by the team’s six-game win streak -- longest in the history of the program – from late February through early March.
Looking back at the state of the program that she inherited two summers ago, McMahon said: “I would probably use the word ‘dismal.’ The players had sort of detached themselves from it, almost maybe stopped caring because they became numb to losing. Some people’s social lives were more important than what happened on the field and they did not make that concerted effort to become a better player, sacrificing for the betterment of the team and staying committed.”
The first step McMahon took to adjust the team’s attitude was to rebuild the girls’ confidence in executing the fundamentals of the game.
“In the beginning,” she said, “we worked mostly on passing, catching, shooting and just playing good man-to-man defense. We just literally broke it down into just how to pass and catch correctly. Then we moved onto really improving our stick work and our shooting, so that at least the players would have something that they would be confident in when they were in the games.”
Ashley Mitchelides, as a redshirt senior this year, carries a unique perspective as the only current player to play under McMahon as well as the two coaches who preceded her.
On the before-and-after effect of Coach McMahon, Mitchelides said: “She instilled a lot of discipline in our program that we lacked before. She has us holding each other accountable on the field as teammates and supporting each other. She is constantly reinforcing to us, believing that we can really do something great here and building up the next class that comes in towards eventually winning the national championship.”
Much of the credit for the team’s success in 2010 is due to the freshmen and sophomores who have played only for McMahon at UConn. The coach sees the strong play of the underclassmen as a motivating factor for her team as a whole.
“I think it’s a good thing,” McMahon said. “It challenges the upperclassmen to almost perform better if they want to still play. By bringing that young blood in and that energy and the desire to compete and to win, I think it has transformed the upperclassmen to getting back to that mentality, because they did have it at one point. We are starting to get it back in terms of being competitive in both practice and trying to win games, in being confident against every opponent thinking that we can win.”
The team’s heightened scoring attack this year is led by sophomore M.E. Lapham.
“She’s our best goal scorer right now on attack,” McMahon said. “She is just taking her game and really pushing herself to get better, which is fantastic. She is seeing all her hard work paying off.”
The spiritual leader on the field, however, is redshirt junior midfielder Lauren Sparks, who missed the entire 2009 season to injury.
“I really didn’t know what to expect with her coming back this year,” McMahon said. “But she has just really blown me away. She really is definitely our fastest player on the field. She leads us in terms of communicating and being vocal and setting the example. She has just really been a huge tremendous help for us on both ends of the field.”
Although some may be surprised by her team’s re-emergence this season, McMahon feels her squad is exactly where they should be at this point.
“I see the potential that we have and I see what we are capable of,” McMahon said. “I’m really not that surprised because we have some good players and they want it. They have that desire.”
Added Mitchelides: “Our team has always had potential but I think it takes a great coach to really bring that out of a team and out of certain individuals. The team as a whole is really buying into the fact that we really are good players so let’s play like we are good players. With the five teams that I have been on here, it’s a whole other level of team effort this year.”
