Cougars in unfamiliar territory
By Dave Buschenfeldt
The Oakton girls lacrosse team is not used to losing. In the past two seasons, the Cougars dropped just three games en route to back-to-back state championships, so when they traveled to Westfield on April 1 and wound up on the short end of a 14-10 score, it came as a bit of a surprise.“I think they just walked out there thinking, 'It's another game on our schedule, we're going to get through it and move on,'” said Oakton coach Jean Counts, whose team had not lost to a Northern Region opponent since falling to Robinson in the 2006 region final. “We lost that fair and square. Westfield worked very hard to get that win.”
Added senior captain Ashley Kimener, “We weren't pumped up at all and they were. They were ready for us. We came out with a loss because we weren't ready for that game.”
Having fielded basically the same team for three straight seasons, Counts points out that hitting bumps in the road is to be expected after losing 10 seniors and seven starters from last year's squad. She is thankful this loss occurred early in the season, while there is still time to improve.
“We have a whole new team,” Counts said. “We have all these new girls that don't know the drill. It's something where they have to learn, and they're learning the hard way.”
That is not to say that the Cougars are no longer a talented team, however. Oakton responded to its loss to Westfield with a 21-1 rout of Centreville last Friday night. The win improved the Cougars to 3-1 in Concorde District play and 4-2 overall – they also lost to a school from Pennsylvania while playing in a tournament in Florida.
With six seniors – including two four-year starters and one three-year starter – leading the way, Oakton will still be a team to be reckoned with at the end of the season.
“None of them have the dominant personality that we had last year,” Counts said of her seniors. “We're all sharing, we're cooperating. I think it's more of a cohesive unit. All of them are easy to approach and talk to. They show leadership mostly by example and just by being the seniors.”
Cohesion is one key to Oakton's success, and another is the fact that the Cougars have several offensive weapons to choose from. Against Centreville, 10 different players scored at least one goal for Oakton. Kimener led the way with five, while junior Daley Michael scored four and senior Brittany Patriarca and junior Christina Nugent had three apiece.
“Everybody wants a goal, but at the same time, we're working together to help each other get a goal,” Kimener said.
Kimener has also seen an improvement in the team's transition game, noting that many of Oakton's goals Friday night came on counterattacks.
Counts admits that this year's team is still searching for its identity on the field, but she knows her players will work as hard as they need to in order to find it.
“They work so hard and they want to win and they want to have success,” Counts said. “I don't have any slackers. We don't have room for that. We want to do well, and I think our downfall is we're inexperienced. They want to do it, they just need to figure out how to do it.”