Chestnut Hill Sports

MSJ grad wins college lacrosse title
by TOM UTESCHER
As a freshman at Mount St. Joseph Academy, Lauren Dougher picked up a lacrosse stick for the first time. Seven years on, there can be no doubt that she’s learned to use it very, very well. Dougher, who’s just finished her junior season at The College of New Jersey (formerly Trenton State), has been named the MVP of the 2005 NCAA Division III Tournament. The 5’7” midfielder is one of the team tri-captains for the Lions, who on May 22nd captured the D-III National Championship with a 9-7 home-field victory over previously unbeaten Salisbury (MD) University. In the first of four NCAA playoff games, Dougher set a new TCNJ record for points in a game, and by the end of the championships she’d established a new standard for total points in the Division III tournament, with 25 (17 goals, eight assists). The two-time All-American registered 69 goals and 33 assists during the 2005 campaign, bringing her career point total to 230 (170g/60a). While Dougher was attending Norwood Fontbonne Academy, lacrosse had not yet made its appearance at the local grade school. Instead, she played basketball and softball for the Bears, and tennis outside of school. Arriving at Mount St. Joe’s, she went out for the tennis team during the fall season. Friends who’d attended another grade school had already taken up lacrosse, and got the Norwood grad interested.

Mount eights win SRAA’s for undefeated season
It was a perfect season for the freshman and lightweight eights of Mount St. Joseph Academy, and not just in the figurative sense of the word. Both of these Magic crews finished first in every single event they entered, from the first Manny Flick series race back in mid-March, to the Scholastic Rowing Association of America National Championships that closed out the 2005 season on Memorial Day weekend. At SRAA Nationals, the lights and the ninth-graders each collected their third gold medal of the spring, having previously won the Philadelphia City Championships and the Stotesbury Regatta. No other crew team in the country, male or female, had two eights capture top honors at the SRAA’s. Mike McKenna, who coaches the team along with Meg Kennedy, remarked “The thing that surprises me about the lightweights was that their margins [of victory] kept growing as the season went on and the level of competition got higher.” MSJ freshman coach Jim Glavin said that from the start of the season his charges proved to be hard workers and quick studies, and their overall height didn’t hurt, either.

Grass court championships return to Philadelphia Cricket Club
The U.S. Junior International Grass Court Championships return to the Philadelphia Cricket Club June 13 with world ranked junior tennis hopefuls competing in both singles and doubles in the week long tournament. The tournament is an outgrowth of the USTA Junior International Grass Courts Championships, which marked its 84th and final year at PCC in August 2002. The tournament today is an International Tennis Federation event and is the only United States junior tournament on grass. It affords players the opportunity to compete on grass before facing the All England Junior Championships at Wimbledon.

GFS girls track wins championship
Germantown Friends School’s Greenawalt track was the site for the 2005 Friends Schools League Track and Field championship. The Tigers gave the home crowd plenty of exciting competition and the thrill of witnessing the GFS girls’ team win its second league title in a row. The GFS boys’ team took third overall, behind Westtown and Friends Central. GFS’s 4x400 squad of senior captains Glenda Smiley and Maddy Davis-Hayes, along with Elena Ballard and Ceci Davis-Hayes, continued their record setting ways by establishing a league meet best of 4:11.3, erasing a mark set by last year’s GFS foursome. GFS also won the 4x100 meter relay in 51.4 with Smiley and Ballard joined by teammates Grier Clark and Bouyeh Zulu.

OMC track receives 19 medals in area championships
The OMC track team has put in an outstanding performance this 2005 season. OMC came home with 35 ribbons from the divisional championships, held on May 15. Area Championships were held at Roxborough High School on May 2, where OMC received 19 medals. The OMC boys placed 4th out of 23 CYO teams while the OMC girls finished 17th.