By: John Robbins

March 1st, 2023:

After back-to-back winning seasons, the Thiel women’s lacrosse team looks to continue its success. Led by second-year head coach Bill Wightman, they are poised for another winning season. Coach Wightman gave a rundown of this year’s team after their 1-2 start.

“We have a really experienced team, a couple really good seniors returning, and then also a couple really good juniors. The thing that I was most encouraged about looking forward to this season was having that because we have some newer girls and some newer players from basketball,” Coach Wightman said about the mixture his team has coming into this season.

Looking at some players who could contribute this season on offense Wightman stated, “Well obviously you have Destiny Johnson, Ashlyn Wightman, Camy Seman on offense. I think there are a couple more that can step up, like Katie Aaron, who is switching positions to attack, and she’s coming along nice. She had three goals in the first game.”

Destiny Johnson opened up her season with 19 goals and 7 assists followed by Ashlyn Wightman who has 14 goals and 2 assists. That point total gave Ashlyn her 100th career point on Saturday. Coach Wightman enjoyed that moment as both her coach and dad, “I enjoyed it so much, but I have to be a coach, not dad. So, it’s hard, but when you see that accomplishment and seeing all the hard work she’s put in through middle school, through high school, and to see it all culminate into one event, it was really cool.”

Then switching to the defensive half of the field, “we are returning Nie-Nie [Nielah] Jones and Annie Boyd, so we have that experience at all levels.” That experience has helped them score 10 or more goals in every game thus far.

Pivoting to the men’s lacrosse team, who finished one game short of the PAC playoffs last season. A 19-8 loss at Chatham capped off a 5-10 season that ended in heartbreak. However, the Tomcats return key talent from last year’s team to make another run at the PAC playoffs.

Team captain and defenseman, Alex Andreozzi is one of those key returners for the team. An All-PAC honorable mention, he led the team in caused turnovers and ground balls. Along with himself, he stated “players to look out for are definitely Bennett Medyn, the leading scorer from last year, Chase Lawler, Pat Hartnett who is trying to rebound from an injury-filled season, and a three-year starter, Jason Masciantonio, in net. There’s some experience definitely returning.”

Medyn was named All-PAC Honorable Mention and sits 14th in all-time in career points for Thiel coming into 2023. Lawler was named Thiel Athletics Male Freshman of the Year, along with PAC Rookie of the Week after tying the school record with 9 goals vs Medaille last season.

Along with those accolades, Zach Melin added a PAC Offensive Player of the Week award this past Monday. He scored 13 goals and 1 assist in 2 games this past week with 8 goals coming in a win against Hilbert.

Thiel Men’s and Women’s lacrosse teams are scheduled to play Wednesday night games before heading into their spring break slates.