GLHS Girls Lacrosse Looks to Soar to New Heights

Hopes are high for the Governor Livingston High School Girls’ Lacrosse team, who are hoping to build on a successful 2010 campaign, which ended with a 13-7 record, with a state playoff berth in 2011.

For Highlanders’ head coach Kristy Annussek, it has been important for her team to bond during pre-season workouts, as working together is critical to the team’s success.

“I believe in my coaching philosophy that, if you’re not together as a team, you’re not going to play together on the field,” said Annussek. “We do a lot of team-building things and we try to just come together.”

Annussek is confident that her team has done that, all while having an opportunity to work on the sport’s fundamentals despite the often-inclement weather that has been so prominent throughout the winter.

“The weather hasn’t really been cooperating with us. We’ve had a lot of indoor time, which isn’t really conducive to lacrosse,” said Annussek. “We’ve focused mainly this pre-season on fundamentals, because we’ve been a team that drops a lot of balls. I focused a lot of pre-season on catching, throwing, double-teaming, things like that. We’ve worked a lot on that when we’re stuck indoors.”

Annussek’s squad will look for key offensive contributions from its underclassmen. Juniors Stephanie Pinto, Jackie Wells, and Jessica Leonardis look to contribute to the Highlander offense, which will also feature standout sophomore Nicole Bendush.

“(Bendush) contributed many goals for us last year as a freshman, so I expect her to be a leader for us on offense this year,” said Annussek.

Defensively, the Highlanders will feature a new goalkeeper in sophomore Alex Grossman. She will be supported by a trio of senior defenders-- Alex Handrinos, Alex Jagiello, and Nadia Quazzi—who also will serve as the team’s captains this season.

Working together as a unit is something the trio of captains noted as being important.

“We have a good group of girls that gets along very well,” said Jagiello. “I think the main part of being a good team is having everyone get along, and that’s one of the strongest aspects of our team.”

It isn’t all fun and games for the Highlanders, though; this is a team that trains hard, regardless of the conditions.

“I think we have to come together at practice every week. We’re here everyday; rain or shine, snow, anything, we’re in the gym,” said Handrinos. “We’re somewhere practicing, running every single day. I think our early preparation is going to help us out when our season starts on Friday.”

Friday is when the Highlanders will host Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School—weather permitting—at 4 PM to get this season underway.

Although predicting how the season will begin may be difficult, Annussek is pleased with what she has seen out of the team’s scrimmages; particularly, Annussek is happy the team’s most recent contest against East Brunswick.

(Tuesday) we played East Brunswick, who we had never played before, and it turned out to be a very competitive game (which ended in a 13-13 tie),” said Annussek. “It was our last scrimmage, and I feel like our best one so far.”