Lacrosse Team Learning Quickly in First Season

The girls on the Mehlville lacrosse team have only been playing for 12 weeks, but notched three wins and one tie for their first season.

The area’s newest club team formed this fall and brings one of the fastest-growing girls sports to South County.

The team has 14 girls and with 12 on the field, there is little rest for the players.

“It was rough at first,” sophomore Madison O’Brien said. “Other teams didn’t like us very much. We didn’t know how to check, so we would hit them a lot.”

Mehlville parent Patrick Honig wanted to start the team and began recruiting players during lunch at the two high schools. His daughter, Sophia, is the goalie on the team and the only one with previous experience.

Honig organized the team and asked teacher Lucian Biesiadecki to coach.

Biesiadecki played lacrosse at Penn State in college and is no stranger to starting a team from scratch. He began a team with the JV boys at CBC and played in the state championship title game.

Though the girls aren’t quite ready for the state tournament, Biesiadecki is amazed at how quickly they’ve learned the sport. When they started, he said many didn’t know how to hold the stick.

“It’s 180 degrees and I am unbelievably happy and proud of how much they’ve progressed,” he said. “They couldn’t catch or pass, but now they can transition the ball downfield, they can set up plays, they’ve learned basic offense and defense. Their fear of being aggressive is definitely not there anymore.”

The coach used videos and even a written test to prepare his players.

“The challenge is the fear of being aggressively attacked and then the fear of attacking someone and knowing all the rules. One of the biggest challenges is knowing what is a foul and what isn’t. They’ve learned a whole new language,” he said.

The team unites Mehlville and Oakville students; since it is a club sport, the team can pull from both high schools.

O’Brien, a sophomore, said she was nervous about being the only Oakville player. That quickly faded as she said the team has really come together.

“It’s amazing that a bunch of girls who have never played the sport have picked it up as fast as they have, and have supported each other,” Biesiadecki said.

The team units not only Mehlville and Oakville, but also Cor Jesu.

Maggie Amato is a junior at Cor Jesu and plays with her cousin, Mehlville senior Amanda Altgilbers. The two would have never played a high school sport together if it wasn’t for lacrosse.

“I started playing because I’m a senior and I thought it’d be kind of cool to start something new and start a tradition at Mehlville, leave a legacy behind,” Altgilbers said.

Altgilbers is also one of the team captains. Along with senior Morgan Siebert, the two are responsible for leading the fledgling team.

“I like the competitiveness of it, even if we’re not that good yet, we still except each other even if it’s a rough game because we’re all new to this,” Altgilbers said.

The senior, who also played basketball and volleyball at Mehlville, is only frustrated she won’t have time to perfect playing the sport before she graduates.

Since it is a club sport, the team has to rent the field at that it practices on, and pay a fee along with buying equipment.

Next season, Biesiadecki hopes to have 40 girls come out, enough for a JV and varsity team.

The team is having a summer camp May 29 through June 1 for grades 5-12.  

Check out more photos of the team on our Facebook page.