In 2006 Marshall won one game. Same in 2007. In 2008, the Statesmen upped their win total to three. That was 2003 graduate Nicholle Depaz Clinton’s first year back at the school where she first learned the game. When she took over as varsity head coach last year, the Falls Church native resorted to using chocolate and brownies to drum up enough interest just to fill out a junior varsity team. Unlike Concorde District powerhouses Robinson, Oakton and Chantilly and Liberty District rivals Madison, most of Marshall’s players had limited – if any – lacrosse experience before high school, forcing Depaz Clinton to start with the basics.
“Most of the teams we play have phenomenal feeder systems so they’re filled with kids who have been playing the game for years. We had kids who had been playing for months or weeks,” Depaz Clinton said. “We haven’t had cuts in the history of the program. But we’re definitely taking strides and improving as a program and this season it shows.”
Depaz Clinton knows firsthand the challenges of overcoming inexperience to build a winning program. She first picked up a lacrosse stick as a sophomore at Marshall and quickly took to the game. After playing for two years at Old Dominion, she transferred to Virginia Tech to take advantage of more academic opportunities, and played ACC lacrosse as a walk-on with the Hokies.
“She’s always using her college and club team experience to give us insight and help us improve,” junior captain and leading scorer Rachel Waldron said. “She definitely pushes us – she’s really big on commitment, she wants us to play with intensity all the time and that’s how we’ve gotten to this point.”
With a team built around a core of nine juniors — many of whom grew up in Depaz Clinton’s neighborhood — the Statesmen (10-4) lost just three times in the regular season, all to Liberty District rivals still alive in the region. Waldron, one of three Marshall players to earn first-team all-district honors, led the league with 61 regular season goals, freshman Kelly Brown has 31 goals and five other players have double-digit tallies for a balanced offense averaging better than 14 goals per game.
At a school with the second-lowest enrollment number in the Northern Region and recently mired in an overall run of athletic mediocrity, the team’s progress has not gone unnoticed. And with only one senior set to graduate this spring and an unprecendented eight youth league players in next year’s freshman class, the Statesemen expect to continue their ascent.
“We’re probably the best sports team at Marshall at the moment,” Waldron said. “We’re kind of sick of Marshall being considered an easy victory on the schedule. We want people to know that we’re good and we’re going to keep getting better.”
Thursday Marshall faces a Chantilly team that opened the season with 15 consecutive wins and is driven to return to the state tournament for the first time since its 2009 title run. In seniors Kacey Norwood (85 goals) and Sonia Wang (48), they have to of the top scorers in the area and considerably more experience than their opponents. But the Chargers (16-1) represent just one more hurdle in Marshall’s growth.
“This is a really big deal for us — we’re making school history, we’re improving tremendously as players and we’re having fun,” said lone senior Rachel Franks. “We proved against Woodson that if you work hard believe in yourselves, there’s nothing stopping you from reaching your goals.
“If we can beat Chantilly, it would inspire everyone. And it would get us one step closer to our overall goal this season — reaching states.”
 of JN1_9349_1329757561.jpg)
Loading...
Comments