Shady Side Academy has strong returning cast

Shady Side Academy won its first WPIAL Class 3A lacrosse championship in 2019 and has had the longest reign of any titlist without a defense.

That’s what happens when a pandemic shuts down an entire season.

A lot has changed since that time and even Shady Side Academy’s mascot is no longer the Indians and is now the Bulldogs.

But that’s not the only alteration for the team as it heads into the season.

“I definitely think our cast is going to be way different than it was two years ago and I think our goals are the same, but losing 2020 gave us a bit of an obstacle in terms of repeating,” Shady Side Academy coach Katy Phillips said. “But we do have a pretty good returning cast of characters.”

Many of those returning players either saw action with the Bulldogs championship team in 2019 or at least practiced every day with AllAmerican Emmie Lau when she was there in 2019.

Senior midfielder Cat Johnson is one of the top players coming back and the team will be bolstered by Sewickley Academy transfer Maddie Recker, who would have missed the 2020 postseason because of the WPIAL transfer policy.

There are also quite a few juniors who were freshmen on the WPIAL championship squad who will be looked at to fill key roles for Shady Side Academy moving forward, including attacker Molly Walsh, midfielders CeCe Messner, Dylan Greene and Jenny Woodings. The Bulldogs also have their starting goalkeeper from 2019 back in senior Gianna Lamanna, which lends a bit of much-needed continuity to the team.

“Our defense, we lost a lot in that ’19 class that really anchored us, so that has been a primary focus as far as rebuilding,” Phillips said. “But right now we’re just talking a lot about being outside, being back together and shaking the dust off. We’re trying move away from being defending WPIAL champions and not put a lot of pressure on the kids”

Class 2A boys

Freeport was undoubtedly the biggest surprise of the 2019 WPIAL Class 2A playoffs.

It was a shock when the No. 12seeded Yellowjackets came out of nowhere and knocked off fifthseeded Chartiers Valley and No. 4 Moon before losing to eventual champion Mars in the semifinals. Even when they lost to Quaker Valley in the consolation match, they were in it until the end before the Quakers pulled out a 12-10 victory.

That run should have been a building block for the program and a way for Freeport to make a name for itself in the sport. But the 2020 shutdown changed all of that.

“I don’t think we’re going to surprise anyone this year and, unfortunately, last year was the year where we would have done really well and possibly have gone farther in the WPIAL and maybe made it to the state tournament,” Freeport coach Dave Riley said. “This year, I have a very young team.”

Though Freeport may be young in some areas, the team will have some offensive capability. Midfielders Kade and Karson Kronen are newcomers to the squad who will be expected to contribute, while junior Garrett King, who was the Yellowjackets starting quarterback in football who battled through cancer, is back on the field for the first time since his remission.

“This year we’ll have seven to nine players who are consistent and can catch and throw and know how to play the game,” Riley said. “I haven’t had that over the years, but I did have a really good defense, which is different from previous years, so we’re going to stress ballcontrol and take good shots and score a lot of goals.”

Class 2A girls

It has been two years since Oakland Catholic ended Hampton’s four-year reign as WPIAL Class 2A champions with a 15-12 finals victory at Robert Morris University.

And, unlike most teams coming back after a year away, the Talbots have quite a few players with a sharp memory of that loss.

“We have at least half our roster back of players who at least saw the field and at least five of them were starters,” Hampton coach Kelsey Viets said. “We’re mature, even though it’s taken some time for them to adapt to their new roles from sophomores to leading as seniors.”

For Hampton, everything starts with senior midfielder Megan Cook, who has committed to play at Kent State, while fellow senior midfielder Jillian Stennett will play at IUP and attacker Meghan Welch, who is coming off a rotator cuff injury, has committed to Dennison.

But perhaps the biggest challenge is getting the team back together. Though many players compete on travel squads, getting them to play as a cohesive unit after two years apart will be a challenge for most teams as they move forward into the season.

“It was really tough because our first few practices were awkward because we all kind of felt we were missing the senior class,” Viets said. “I know that it was a big ask of these 15 seniors to mature quickly and take on leadership roles where they didn’t have the experience of seeing the seniors before them do it first.”