Springside Sticksters Prevail in Prague Tournament
by TOM UTESCHER
Betsy Dougherty, former Springside School lacrosse coach and United States Team captain, slipped behind the Iron Curtain back in the late 1980’s to visit Prague, then the capitol of Czechoslovakia. Dougherty and a few other U.S. Team players, including her sister Julie Williams, received a special invitation to travel to the medieval city on the VlTava River and hold a series of clinics to encourage the growth of the sport in the country, which was part of the Communist Block at the time.
Earlier this month Springside’s 2005 lacrosse team journeyed to what is now the Czech Republic, joining a total of 17 other teams at the eighth annual Prague Cup Tournament. A high school category had been established at the tourney in 2004, and in the second year of competition it was the Springside Lions who finished first in this “Juniorky” division to capture the Prague Cup. There were also two boys high school squads at the event, along with a college division featuring four women’s teams and three men’s teams.
The present day Springsiders wound up following in the footsteps of the school’s former coach by happenstance, not by intention. The Lions had originally booked a spring break trip to England as a tune-up for the 2005 high school season, but it turned out that most British teams would be off for their Easter holiday at the same time, and it would’ve been difficult to schedule matches for the Philadelphia crew.
The sports travel firm that had been making the arrangements, Sweet Chariot, was also handling bookings for the Prague Cup tourney, and asked the Springside group if they’d be interested in visiting the Czech Republic instead. In the meantime, sticksters Amanda Hershey, Ariane Lee, and Bunny O’Reilly graduated from Springside, but because they’d been part of the intended spring tour, they went along to Prague with their former teammates. Some members of the 2005 JV squad also made the trip, so there was a wide range of age and experience amongst the 18-player contingent.
“We actually had very good competition,” reported Lions coach Brooke Fritz, whose club was the only American team in the schoolgirls division. “The tournament was held at a former Communist sports facility; I think it’s now called the Slavia Training Centre. It was very nice and very well-kept, and our hotel was right on the grounds.”
Springside’s trip ran from July 9-17, and with the actual tournament competition taking up just three days, the Philadelphians had time for sightseeing.
“We got to travel around Prague, which was very cool,” noted goalkeeper Maeve Koch, a rising senior.
Classmate Maggie Kyle, one of the team co-captains, agreed, remarking “It was amazing. It was a lot different than Chestnut Hill. A lot of the buildings are very old, but things have been preserved really well, and it was very clean.”
The visiting entourage took in attractions such as the ornate St. Nicholas Church and the 600-year-old Charles Bridge, and to gain a panoramic view of the city, they climbed the 299 steps to the observation platform of the Petrin Tower, a smaller facsimile of the Eiffel Tower that was erected in 1891.
Some of the players’ parents and several students from Springside’s “brother” school, Chestnut Hill Academy, had also made the trip, so when they were in action on the lacrosse pitch the Lions had their own cheering section from the outset, and they acquired more fans along the way.
Ironically, with the way the tournament was formatted, Springside never actually played against the Czech team entered in the high school division. They wound up facing the type of competition they would’ve encountered if they’d toured Great Britain as originally planned. Their English rivals were Haberdashers Aske’s, Haileybury, and Lady Eleanor Holles, all independent schools located near London, and there was also a group of players being groomed for Scotland’s Under-19 national squad.
Most of the officiating chores at the event were handled by players from the Czech national team. They’d just returned from the quadrennial World Cup Tournament (the equivalent of the Olympic Games for women’s lacrosse), which finished up on July 2 in Annapolis, MD. In the late 1980’s and early 90’s, visiting coaches such as Dougherty, Springside’s former mentor, helped foster interest in the sport, and in 1993 the fledgling Czech Republic sent a team to the World Cup Tournament for the first time.
They did not participate in the 1997 and 2001 tournaments, but this year the Czechs were back in the international arena, winding up with a 2-6 record after losing to Scotland, 17-3, in the match that determined seventh and eight place.
On the first day of the Prague Cup tourney, the Springsiders started off with their lone loss of the trip, falling to Haberdasher’s, 11-5. The nine schoolgirl teams had been divided into three three-team pools, and in their afternoon game the Lions earned second place in their triad with a 15-1 victory over Haileybury’s “B” team.
The Philadelphia crew had to adapt to a number of rule changes for international play, and to the tendencies of their English opponents.
“Their passes were a little crazy and loopy, but once we got used to that we started to intercept a lot of them,” Kyle explained.
From the goalcage, Koch observed “They shot from really far out. The shots weren’t hard to see, but you had to be ready for them, because we’re used to people trying to get closer to the goal before they shoot.”
On the second day the Lions downed Scotland, 7-3, and Haileybury “A,” 8-3, and they opened up on the final day by beating Lady Eleanor Holles, 8-3. This brought up a rematch against Haberdashers in the championship game of the tournament. The Habs bunch found the Lions to be a changed team the second time around.
“We were finally in shape by the last game,” Kyle related. “Also, we had a bunch of girls from the JV team and the varsity mixed together, and by the end [of the tournament] we had gotten used to playing with one another.”
Haberdashers stayed close, but Springside led for most of the game en route to a 6-4 victory that netted them the Prague Cup.
“It was encouraging to see the way that the freshmen [sophomores-to-be] stepped up during the tournament,” Coach Fritz remarked. “In our second game, when we played Haileybury’s “B” team, we played the JV girls and they did really well, and I think after that they were confident that they could play with anybody.”
“It was really fun to be able to win,” Koch commented. “It was great for the younger girls, because we were able to sort of bring them onto the team in the summer rather than at the start of the season next year.”
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