Just as the Petaluma High girls lacrosse team was getting started on the freeway that leads to a successful program, COVID-19 put up a huge stop sign.
“It was going to be a great year,” said Petaluma coach Sarah Shada. “It was the smoothest start to a season we’ve ever hard. We didn’t have to give up the field to soccer and practice on the blacktop. Everything was going well.”
After splitting their first two games with a win over Rancho Cotate and a loss to Marin Catholic, the T-Girls were on their way to a game at Branson when they heard the news that their season had been postponed until April 6, and with a shelter-in-place order from the state and a school closure extended until May, it is likely to be much longer.
The closure was particularly hurtful to Shada, who, for the first time, had not only enough players, but enough experienced players to field both a varsity and a junior varsity team. She said she had between 35 and 40 players out for the sport. “For the first time, we had more players than uniforms,” she observed.
And, the players turned out for high school lacrosse knowing the game. “The youth lacrosse program has done a lot for us. Now when players come out, I don’t have to show them how to hold the stick,” she added.
It isn’t just the numbers, and it isn’t just the individual skills that has (had?) Shada optimistic about the season that is (or is not).
“The players had gotten to where they were understanding how to play the game,” the coach said. “It wasn’t just give the ball to Kylie Moser. They were understanding the movement of the game and how to move the ball down field. They are a very smart team.”
Moser, a junior captain, is one of the best players in the North Bay. “Colleges started recruiting her when she started playing in high school,” Shada said.
Moser is supported by senior captains Juliet Maddox and Reilly Williams.
Other seniors on the team are Hannah Cordeiro, Zahara Cuevas-Kovanis and Monzerral Herrera. “I’m really hurting for the seniors,” Shada said. “They may not even have a chance to say goodbye.”
Another key player for Petauma is junior Nicoletta Johnson. She provided a highlight of Petaluma’s very short season when she scored on a no-look, behind-the-back shot against Rancho Cotate that she had been working on since the first day of practice.
Shada continues to be in communication with her players, who are inventing ways to continue working as a team. One idea is what they call the Stick Field Challenge where they pass along videos of themselves practicing stick handling and trick shots.
“Just some way to have some communication,” noted Shada.
If nothing else, the Petaluma coach would like to have at least one more game or scrimmage to allow the players, and especially the seniors, to end the year on a playing note.
That one game would, ideally, of course be against Casa Grande. “The players all know one another,” Shada said. “They have played against and with one another in the youth league. It would be a good way to finish the season if we could get it played.”
A season would be nice, but in this uncertain world, a very good Petaluma girls lacrosse team will settle for what they can get, even if it is only one game.
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