The Jefferson varsity girls lacrosse team won 19-6 over the Annandale Atoms in the District Quarterfinals on Thursday, May 15 in an impressive display of skill. Spinning, sprinting and leaping up to catch the ball, the Colonials put all of their effort into this game. This win adds one more to their season’s win, loss and tie record to make it 11-1-0, an improvement from the last season’s 9-3-0.
Annandale High School and Jefferson are only 3.5 miles, or a 10 minute drive, away from each other. This proximity creates a special competition between schools.
“There’s some competition just because we’re neighboring schools. But when it comes to some sports, like girls lacrosse, we kind of dominate them because we have some star players on our team that have been playing lacrosse for years. They’ve kind of helped foster the team into being, like, way more competitive than Annandale. It’s definitely still fun to play them. But when we walk up to play Annandale, we pretty much know what the result is gonna be,” Taylor said.
“Spider” is a play where two fast attackers basically lure away two defenders to leave an open path for another attacker. Taylor shared how her team’s execution of “Spider” was her favorite moment from the game.
“My favorite moment from the game was one of the goals I scored. I scored twice, and one of the goals I scored was from a play we had practiced before [called Spider]. I was the one with the ball, and I scored a goal off of it,” Taylor said. “It was really nice, because we worked on it a lot in practice. So it’s just nice to see it work in the game.”
This game was not the first matchup between Jefferson and Annandale this season. For the Jefferson-Annandale Spring Jubilee on May 2, the Colonials faced the Atoms at Annandale on a much hotter day, winning 12-6. Without as much heat in this game on May 15, the Colonials’ skill was able to shine.
“The first time we played them, there was no shade. It was that day where Annandale plays all the Jefferson teams. It was so hot that we couldn’t keep them at bay as much, and even some of our better players were tired. But I think [the lack of heat in] this game made it [better]” sophomore Nathalie Hatchuel said.
Two captains stood out from the rest of the Jefferson team. Senior Ashley Chon and junior Mikaela Nowinski celebrated scoring their 100th career lacrosse goals. Chon described how it felt to achieve her 100th goal.
“It was really great. I’m grateful for all my teammates because honestly, yes, I’m scoring goals, but they do a lot of stuff leading up to that goal, and I feel like I’m the only one getting credit for any of the work. Truly, I just want to say thank you to my team,” Chon said.
These players aren’t just great goal scorers, though. Their leadership and constant support is felt by the entire team.
“They just help us be better. Like, it’s a cliche thing to say, but when it comes to team captains, they really are some of the best ones. They’ll always be like, ‘Oh, try again’ when you miss a shot, or tell you to pick your head up if we lose. Sometimes we do, but most of the time, they’re just always there for the team to motivate us to be better,” Taylor said.