JV Girls Lacrosse: Knights take on North Hagerstown in important tune-up

By Ben Spector
Winning After MidKnight

                       

The Middletown High School Knights JV Girls Lacrosse team will look to end their pre-season on a high note when they head out west to Washington County to take on the North Hagerstown High School Hubs at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 17^th.

The Knights head into their final pre-season game with a good idea of how they will suit up in their season debut against the Liberty High School Lions in Friday March 20^th but the scrimmage will give the Knights a chance to make the final determination on who will be in the starting line-ups in three days against the team from Carroll County.

This game will also give the sophomores on the Knights a chance to stake their claim as the leaders of the team with sophomores Shannon Duley, Megan Atkinson, and Rachel Walchuck looking to take a leadership position in their final season before, most likely, moving up to the Varsity level.

The Knights though will have their focus solely set on getting ready for Friday’s tilt against Liberty, a daunting task for the Knights to face in their season opener, as the Lions are one of the more established and talented programs in Carroll County and Western Maryland.

“It’s a tune up for Friday,” said Duley, who will look to lead the Knights to a winning record in her second season with the Knights. “The coaches are still trying to figure out who is going to benefit the team at a certain position. The main goal is more (action) on offense. We have to make sure we have spacing and keep the ball in the air, so we can hit our cutters more accurately.”

Although, the score of the contest is rather irrelevant the Knights are in a good position to have their way with the Hubs on Tuesday night as the Hubs program has struggled in past years, lost in a region that is bounds better than the Hubs.

The Hubs have also been hampered by the fact that they play in lacrosse-weak Washington County where the level of competition is quite low compared to the high quality of play in neighboring Frederick County.

Middletown’s Girls Lacrosse program has shown lots of promise in the past year with the Knights developing into one of the top programs in Frederick County, and the players on the JV Girls lacrosse team are a testament to that as Middletown has put together a solid team.

The biggest concern for the Knights heading into this year will be if the freshman class can provide the same type of success that the sophomores had last year. The success of players like Duley, Walchuck, and Atkinson helped power the Knights to their best finish in recent years and set up a talented spread of sophomores for this year.

The scrimmage against the Hubs will provide a good glimpse of the talent of the freshman class as 9^th graders Rilee March and Jenna Ignasiak are just the tip of the iceberg in a group of freshmen that could play a huge difference in the season.

The Knights will look down to take the Hubs in a scrimmage and propel themselves into the season and a date with the Lions.