| Awards, college job for Springside laxers
by TOM UTESCHER
It's been a good month for current and former lacrosse
players from Springside School.
At the local school's graduation gathering on June
9, high-scoring midfielder Zan Morley received the Phyllis M. Vare
Sportsmanship Award as the outstanding athlete in the departing
senior class. The following Monday, June 14, Lehigh University announced
that it has hired former Vare Award winner Liz Brode Ota (Springside
'91, Lehigh '95) as head women's lacrosse coach, effective July
1.
Last fall, Morley accepted a scholarship to join the
nationally-prominent program at Georgetown University [see feature
story in 12/4/03 LOCAL]. A two-time high school All-American, she
ended her Springside career with a school-record 211 goals, amassing
81 goals and 35 assists in her senior season alone. She also played
on the Lions' varsity basketball, soccer and tennis teams.
Another stickster, 11th grader Ariane Lee,
was presented with Springside's Junior Vare Award, which recognizes
"the consumate team player who is willing to assume any role
to make her team better." Lee plays field hockey in the fall,
and in lacrosse this spring she produced 25 goals and seven assists
for the Lions.
Liz Ota, the wife of Springside athletic director
Kenji Ota, was a standout in field hockey, squash, and lacrosse
for Springside, and she pursued both of outdoor sports in college.
When her playing career ended, she served as assistant lacrosse
coach at Harvard (where she handled many of the recruiting chores)
and at Lehigh. She came back to Springside in the late 1990's, working
as Director of Admissions, varsity lacrosse coach, and then athletic
director.
She stepped down from the AD's post in 2001, focusing
her attention on the arrival of her first child, and on completing
her law degree at Temple University.
Back when Ota played for Lehigh in the early and mid-nineties,
the Mountain Hawks were in their heyday, winning the Patriot League
title and achieving a ranking of 12th in the nation.
As a senior, Brode was named MVP of the league, and was a Second-Team
All-American.
Her college coach, Jackie Keeley, retired after the
2002 season, and Lehigh changed coaches again at the end of the
2003 campaign. Three 2004 Lehigh graduates whom Ota coached at Springside,
Rebecca Morley (Zan's sister) and Ella and Emily Studdiford, played
under three different mentors while in Bethlehem. Emily Studdiford
was named 2004 athlete of the year, but the team's win/loss record
this spring was disappointing; 1-5 in the league and 5-10 overall.
"That really drove home to me, in a personal
way, that the program needs to get on back track," Ota says,
"and the first thing to do is to provide some stability in
terms of coaching. I'd kept in touch with [Athletic Director] Joe
Sterrett, and he shared my concerns."
The Hawks' new skipper is glad that Jill Johnson Redfern
will continue in the role of assistant coach. A 1993 U.S. World
Cup teammate of Ota's Springside coach, Betsy Dougherty, Redfern
was formerly head lacrosse coach at nearby Lafayette, earning Patriot
League Coach of the Year honors for the 2000 season. Ota is expecting
her second child in August, and she's been assured by Redfern (who
has several young children of her own) that the childcare program
at Lehigh is exceptional.
Ota feels confident that once prospects realize that
there's no longer a revolving door in the head coach's office, she
can restore the luster to the Mountain Hawks' program. One of the
factors in Lehigh's favor is a close understanding between the spring
and fall season coaches, so that a gifted athlete could play hockey
or soccer as well as lacrosse.
Lehigh's field complex is located a few miles south
of the main campus, making for a manageable 45-minute commute for
Liz and allowing the Otas to continue to reside in Blue Bell.
"It'll be a challenge, and with the new baby
coming I know I'll have a lot on my plate," she admits. "My
heart is in coaching, though, and this is a position where I feel
I can make a difference for a program that I care about." |
