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Lakeville North pushes forward

By Aaron Paitich, Special to the Star Tribune, 04/18/11, 11:57AM CDT

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Panthers overcome offseason obstacles, form stronger team bond


Lakeville North coach Kate Leavell gave instructions to her players as they practiced at the Windrose Park in Elko. Bruce Bisping/Star Tribune


Lakeville North's Hannah Koloski shot on goal as the team practiced at the Windrose Park in Elko. Bruce Bisping/Star Tribune

The Lakeville school board, which was facing a $15 million budget deficit, recommended cutting all city high school lacrosse teams beginning with the 2012 season.

The threat itself was enough to scare off some Lakeville North girls’ players who thought their program would cease to exist. But in early February, a final vote prevented the cuts. There will be a slight fee increase — about $50 per player — and boosters will step up their efforts as well.

“It just made a lot of people mad and angry about it because a lot of girls on the team have chances at Division II, Division I college lacrosse,” said Lakeville North sophomore midfielder Lauren Storhoff, a co-captain. “Just thinking that might have been taken away was terrible. A lot of girls also only play lacrosse. We love our coach, we love our players; it would have been a major loss.”

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

“It definitely brought us together. It was stressful,” Lakeville North senior co-captain and goaltender Nora Vee said. “But it was more like team bonding. And it was good we were able to do that before the season started.”

Lakeville North’s next challenge came with the splitting of its previously combined program with Lakeville South. While the move might be good news for the sport’s growth in Minnesota, North coach Kate Leavell’s team took a big numbers hit. A couple of seniors, including superstar Abbie Ness, left to form the new-rival Cougars, along with almost the entire junior varsity squad.

It was another emotional challenge, as many of the girls have been playing their whole lacrosse lives together — and now find themselves on opposite sidelines.

“Even losing a lot of our seniors this year was kind of hard, along with the split and finding out they might drop the program was heartbreaking, because we all wanted to keep playing together,” sophomore co-captain Taylor Christianson said. “A lot of us girls were real close.”

It doesn’t stop there. Last season, Leavell lost eight seniors to graduation from their state tournament team. This year’s squad only contains two seniors and no juniors.

With most of the JV team gone, the second-year coach dug into the youth program and pulled up three eighth-graders to replace those seniors. Those three eighth-graders are now varsity starters, including attacker Logan Dobratz.

Aside from the super youngsters, the core of this year’s Panthers is solidified around a large group of talented sophomores. When Leavell moved here a few years ago, she coached this group as eighth graders, so the crop is very familiar to her. Three of the team’s four captains — Storhoff, Christianson and the speedy, rising-star midfielder Hannah Koloski — are 10th-graders.

With most of the large distractions behind them, the Panthers can get down to business. The girls did so in fine fashion with a season-opening 15-4 victory over Rochester Mayo.

“It’s very difficult. Some teams really struggle to come back after that,” Leavell said of challenges that come with splitting a program. “It takes a little while to rebuild. We’re trying to buster that barrier and come back quicker. That’s our goal this year. We’re trying to fast forward and get there right away.”

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