OAKLAND — Few things are more valuable to high school coaches than practice time.

It is an opportunity to hone skills and prepare players for situations they may face in games. The Messalonskee girls lacrosse team certainly did that in their practices throughout the season, but every Friday Eagles coach Ashley Pullen made sure to include an activity where the team put the sticks down to “play and be silly.”

“I value the relationships that you have with teammates and that trust factor is so important,” Pullen said. “Some coaches would say it was crazy to give up precious practice minutes, especially if you have a young team like I did. It really pays dividends to have that team chemistry.”

Whether or not one agrees with Pullen’s philosophy, it is hard to argue with her team’s results. The Eagles graduated five key seniors and lost a number of other potential starters for various reasons, which led to a number of freshmen or sophomores logging major minutes.

Despite the Eagles’ inexperience, the team still managed to have their greatest season in program history. For helping guide Messalonskee to its first Eastern Class A championship, Pullen has been named the 2015 Kennebec Journal/Morning Sentinel Girls Lacrosse Coach of the Year.

“Coach worked with us and she knew what our strengths were,” Messalonskee junior captain Nathalie St. Pierre said. “She just knew exactly what we needed to keep pushing us forward.

Advertisement

“She was also really open to suggestions that the other captains had. If we felt like something wasn’t working on the field we could tell her.”

St. Pierre said it was things like “Fun Fridays” that not only kept the team loose, but also taught them lessons about teamwork at the same time. She recalled a particular occasion in a game called flag tag, a combination of flag football and tag where each player tries to remove another’s’ flag until only one person remains.

“One instance we were playing flag tag and a group of probably seven us decided to gang up together,” St. Pierre said. “We called it the alliance, but at the end we just decided to pull our flags at the same time. If we made it that far together we needed to lose at the same.

“Through those games we kind of learned things about ourselves and what being a team was about. We’d have to look out for each other. There were mini lessons about game strategy within those games.”

Evan Crawley — 621-5640

ecrawley@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @Evan_Crawley


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.