After going through a rigorous seven-hour tryout involving 50 to 60 of the best girls’ lacrosse players in Utah and Idaho, the 2011 U-17 Utah/Idaho National Team was selected on Monday.
Of the 18 players to make the roster, four hail from Park City.
Juniors Katherine Coleman and Samantha Meyer, along with freshman Danielle Lecher and sophomore Madeline Haynes, were selected for the squad that will be heading to the East Coast to face top-level competition.
“We are very proud of them,” said head coach Amy Hafets. “It is a really high honor and a nice achievement and they’re representing this region of lacrosse back east, and in a national tournament. The East Coast is such a hotbed for lacrosse and the competition elevates their level of play. They’ll bring that back with them to Park City lacrosse.”
Assistant coach Julie Glusker, a former collegiate player at Dartmouth College, has helped coach the U-17 team before and said she saw the potential as soon as she saw this year’s group take the field in practice.
“We were super psyched,” she said. “That’s kind of a good indication of their skill and ability to play up a level.”
Glusker said she wasn’t involved in the team’s selection process and that made it much sweeter, knowing that Park City’s athletes are being recognized on a national level.
Hafets said those who attended the tryouts went through a meticulous regimen of various drills, stick work and mini-game situations.
“They were watched under a microscope all day,” she said.
The 2011 Women’s Division National Tournament will be held in Stony Brook, N.Y., on May 28 and 29. The tournament, which began in 1933 to showcase women’s lacrosse players, has grown into one of the nation’s largest women’s lacrosse events.
“It’s very exciting and very rewarding,” Hafets said.