Varsity Girls Lacrosse: Seven sensational seniors lead the way for Middletown

By Ben Spector
Winning After MidKnight

                       

The Middletown High School Knights Varsity Girls Lacrosse team has a problem. Fortunately, for the Knights it’s a problem that about every team in the state of Maryland would want to be in. In a sport, where there are 11 players on the field, the Knights will take the field knowing that they may have the largest amount of players who will be going to play lacrosse in college of anyone in the state.

The Knights have seven seniors that have already signed their National Letters of Intent to play college lacrosse and will use those seven players with the addition of some other talented players to provide what appears to be the best shot at a state title that the Knights have had in a while.

What is even more impressive for the Knights is the destination of where the players would be playing. With no disrespect intended to Division III National Collegiate Athletic Association (N.C.A.A.) athletes, a team of 7 Division III Lacrosse players while impressive wouldn’t be something to write home about.

That is not the case with Middletown though as not only do they carry seven players who will continue on their lacrosse careers at a higher level but also a large number of players out of those seven who will play at the highest level of lacrosse.

Out of the seven players that the Knights have who will be continuing their career at the college level five of the seven will play Division I Lacrosse, while two will play Division II Lacrosse.

Although, we’ve mentioned the players in the original article about the National Letter of Intent signing, for those of you who don’t know, the seven players are Brittney Levine, Carly Tolino, Hannah Powell, Bailey Skubon, Casey Aguilar-Gervase, Samantha Breeze, and Olivia Ginebra.

Levine, Tolino, Skubon, Aguilar-Gervase, and Breeze will be taking the Division I route with Levine and Tolino playing at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC) next year, while Skubon will head up to Robert Morris University in Moon Township, Pennsylvania to play with Breeze’s older sister, Katie Breeze. Finally, the younger Breeze and Aguilar-Gervase will join Middletown alumni and current American University freshman Jennifer Desimone in the Eagles uniform next season.

At the Division II Lacrosse level will be Ginebra and Powell, with Ginebra plying her trade at Edinboro University in Edinboro, Pennsylvania and Powell staying in the same state as Ginebra, playing at Seton Hill University in nearby Greensburg.

With all this talent, one might assume that the Knights would be the early and likely pick to win a state championship but that is not the case for Middletown.

The state of Maryland has always been heavy on the lacrosse talent and that is certainly the case for public schools in the state of Maryland and more importantly for Middletown, that is the case for the 2A-3A classification in which the Knights compete in for girls lacrosse. Sitting across the classification from Middletown is another Knights team, except this one is from Century High School, playing out of the South region of the 2A-3A classification.

Century has dominated the sport of girls lacrosse in the state of Maryland over recent memory. Taking out a loss in the region championship game last year, Century had not missed out on making it to a state final since 2008. Going back to the 2002-2003 season and up until the present out of 12 seasons, Century had made it to 10 state finals winning six of them making them the 3^rd highest team in terms of state championships behind Mount Hebron, who has 15, and Severna Park, who has 12.

History or even Century won’t be a worry for the Knights though as their main competition inside the 2A-3A West region will lie just 15 minutes away in Ijamsville, Maryland in the form of the Oakdale High School Bears. The Bears and the Knights have played some classics in the past including a regular season contest last year that saw Middletown score with just 15 seconds left in the game to get the 8-7 victory.

Outside of Oakdale, the Knights do not have that much strong competition in their section or their region setting up the possibility of a state semifinal appearance if the Knights can get past Oakdale if they are to meet up in the playoffs.

That is all in the distant future though, as now Middletown will look to jump into the regular season and get to see just how much the problem of having seven equally talented seniors vying for playing time can be a problem for their opponents to deal with.