Anatomy of a champion

Hoisting the trophy above their heads in celebration following an 11-10 overtime victory over Salisbury last May 17 meant two things.

One: The F&M women’s lacrosse team was the 2009 national champion.

And two: F&M women’s lacrosse is here to stay.

After winning their first national title in 2007 and then again reaching the title game in 2008, F&M was on the brink of history. The 2009 national title cemented the Dips in NCAA history. For three years, F&M dominated the sports of women’s lacrosse like no other team before it.

The championships are also the start of a tradition the 2010 version of the women’s lacrosse team is looking to continue.

Winning for the F&M women’s lacrosse team has become a tradition, passed on from one class to the next. Success has been ingrained in the minds of the players and coaches. With each passing class, there is another crop of qualified seniors ready to carry the torch.

“The reason we remain so successful has to do with the seniors every year,” said co-captain Amanda Miceli ’10. “After each group of seniors graduates, they leave a part of them with the team. Whether it’s knowledge or work ethic, the team holds on to these qualities and passes them on in a traditional manner. I remember everything left from each of the seniors who has graduated, and it has made me grow as a player beyond belief.”

Indeed, as time has passed, each player that has gone through the program has left her own unique mark. Each senior class has left something behind for the current group of players to absorb.

The program for most of its history enjoyed modest success, remaining competitive in the Centennial Conference, but never making much noise in terms of deep postseason runs or conference championships. It was a respectable program, but not one that would grab the attention of the nation.

This is the situation Anne Phillips, now head coach at Yale University in Connecticut, had when she first stepped on F&M’s campus in 2003. Granted, she was not taking the reigns of some scrub program; every head coach in the history of F&M women’s lacrosse has a career record above .500. Nevertheless, the heights she and her team would reach were yet unimaginable.

Phillips recruited differently, and she instilled a work ethic and a drive in her team that had not been seen here before. It eventually culminated into a 21-0 perfect season in 2007 that was capped off by a national championship run. It is the only pefect season in NCAA Division III history.

A standard of excellence had been created.

Following another stellar year in 2008 that saw F&M fall to Hamilton in the national title game, Phillips departed for another challenge, this time to coach the Bulldogs at Yale at the Division I level. Her absence left the team in limbo for a short time, but it never rattled the players she had brought in to help create that high standard that exists at the program today.

“I’m sure there was a lot of talk in the school and athletic department, even amongst our parents,” said co-captain Paulette Cutruzzula ’10 when asked if there was any panic following Phillips’ departure. “But this has always been our team and we know that good coaches come and go, but the players define the program.” 

Cutruzzula added the team knew what it wanted, and it knew its identity when current head coach Lauren Paul arrived on campus for the 2009 season. 

“When Coach [Lauren] Paul [‘03] came in, our team was pretty blunt about where we currently were, where we should be, and where we wanted to be,” Cutruzzula said. “She did what we needed to get there.”

Phillips left a high standard to match after her departure for the Division I ranks, and as Paul prepared to assume the role of head coach, the expectations were there. For Paul, who played under Phillips during the 2003 season, it was a challenge she was excited to take on, saying that she hoped to carry on many of the values Phillips instilled in her players.

“I feel honored to have the opportunity to follow in [Phillips’] footsteps and to coach the amazing athletes she recruited,” Paul said. “She was my coach and I admire the success she had as a coach and the tradition of excellence she built while she was here. She taught me the importance of caring about our alma mater and its future, and I hope to instill that in my athletes.”

For many programs, transitioning from a coach who achieved the tremendous success Phillips did can be challenging, as the chemistry and the leadership among the team can be disrupted.

As evidenced by the national title F&M achieved in 2009 just one year following the coaching change, it was a challenge that the team conquered easily.

“[Paul] handled the transition very well after taking over for Coach Phillips,” assistant coach Brooke Young said. “Being a former player in the program, she was able to maintain the routine the girls learned from Anne [Phillips] and only tweaked little things when necessary.”

By only changing what was necessary and allowing the girls to remain comfortable, Paul allowed the transition to operate relatively smoothly. That, along with a stable roster that only graduated one senior, gave the team the chance to succeed right out of the gate under a new coaching staff.

“[The transition] was relatively smooth,” Cutruzzula said. “Luckily, that year we only graduated one senior, and she came back to coach. Coach Paul was coached by Coach Phillips, so the team automatically had a connection and understanding. Both coaches demand the best of us everyday, and if you don’t bring it, you bet they’ll call you out on it.”

Assistant coach Carli McLaughlin ’08, the lone senior Cutruzzula mentioned, perhaps symbolizes the successful transition the best, as she cherishes the title she won as a player just as much as the title she won as a coach two seasons later. 

McLaughlin mentioned that the two different scenarios elicited different emotions, relating the feeling she had in 2009 as something closer to being a proud parent.

“Winning a national championship as a player was an absolutely incredible feeling,” McLaughlin said. “As a coach, the level of excitement is just the same. Both were incredible experiences, but standing on the sideline for the 2009 national championship tapped into emotions that were not felt in 2007. I felt proud of our players more than anything. At 23, I felt like a proud parent.”

The tremendous success cultivated at F&M has become a tradition rather than a flash in the pan or a one-hit wonder. F&M is once again in the hunt for a deep postseason run and is looking to lay claim to its second consecutive national title and the third title in four years.

With expectations comes pressure, and it is a factor that the Dips cope with on a daily basis, as every team they face is looking to give F&M its best shot, hoping to be that one team that upsets the mighty Diplomats.

Both Miceli and Paul say that, while the pressure is there, the team does not dwell on it, preferring to remain focused on the task at hand while keeping everything in perspective.

“The pressure is always there, but we don’t talk about it,” Miceli said. “Coach [Paul] keeps us focused on the next game. The big picture remains in the back of our heads, but we don’t let it get the best of us.”

“Pressure comes with success, but if you can’t handle the pressure, you wouldn’t be successful,” Paul added. “It’s kind of a Catch-22. We use the pressures to fuel us to be the best, and we make sure they don’t have a negative effect on our team.”

So far in 2010, the pressure has only gotten to the Dips three times, as they lost a close game to Salisbury in an early season rematch of the 2009 national title game and then lost back-to-back games to Gettysburg and The College of New Jersey last week.

Despite the three losses, the 2010 version of the F&M women’s lacrosse team is still in the hunt. Each and every team is unique from those that existed before it, and this year’s squad is certainly no different.

Co-captain Lidia Sanza ’10 gets a good look of the field from her goalie position, and, from what she sees on a daily basis, this year the Dips have the strongest defense since she has been here.

“This is the best team defense we have had in my three years here,” Sanza said. “In the past we have had very good individual defenders but this year we have outstanding team defense. So we might not have any superstars, but we all have each others’ back and understand how we each are going to react.”

Sanza’s point is one that resonates throughout the rest of the team as well.

Unlike in past seasons where the Dips have had one or two all-stars the team would look to in crunch time, the 2010 team is one based on teamwork and chemistry, taking a team approach rather than looking for a specific player when the team needs a boost.

“Instead of having ‘go-to’ players like we did in some of our seniors last year, everyone on our attack can be a threat,” Young said. “If one person gets shut down, we have others with the same abilities who step up … as we like to call it, ‘got-your-back lacrosse’ has been our strongest asset as a team.”

Sanza added this year’s team has been labeled as too young to win back-to-back national titles and said that, as long as the Dips continue to play the “got-your-back lacrosse” that Young mentioned, F&M can be a very difficult team to beat.

“This year we get a lot of people saying we are too young and [don’t] have enough experience,” Sanza said. “Age has nothing to do with skill. So although we are ‘young’ and not a team filled with superstars, when we play as a team we are unstoppable and the most complete team in [Division III].”

F&M’s success has been nearly unparalleled, and Young can draw comparisons between the Dips and her alma mater UNC, where she played for another women’s lacrosse power at the Division I level during her collegiate career. Young continued to stress team chemistry as an important ingredient for success.

“Becoming familiar with your teammates and building team chemistry is what really made my UNC team and the F&M team so successful,” Young said. “The key components for success in both the UNC and the F&M programs are trust and confidence in one another, hard work, team work, and common goals understood by all. The determination of the athletes at both levels are very similar.”

Over these past three seasons, F&M has indeed been unstoppable and has placed itself as one of the best Division III women’s lacrosse teams to take the field in the sports’ history.

According to Centennial Conference Director Steve Ulrich, the dominance and the high level of play displayed by F&M (as well as Centennial Conference rival Gettysburg) has not only raised the conference’s stature as a whole, but has also made the individual teams that play in the Centennial better as well.

“Certainly the Conference’s image in the eyes of the women’s lacrosse world has been raised by the two NCAA Division III championships won by Franklin and Marshall,” Ulrich said. “F&M and Gettysburg have raised the bar for other teams in the Centennial. When you look at the Centennial’s out-of-conference record over the past few years, you’ll see a great deal of success.”

With all the success F&M has had the past several seasons, the team has come to expect that they will perform at a high level and make deep runs into the postseason every year.

Paul has become extremely proud of her team and said this current group of players has the makeup to be one of the few teams in the country able to compete for another national title when the season begins to wind down.

“I cannot express the amount of pride I have in this team,” Paul said. “They are wonderful and extraordinary individuals. Every year, there are five to ten teams that are talented enough to win the national championship. We are definitely one of them. This team has what it takes, and we are excited about the rest of the journey this season.”

While everyone on the roster is confident in the team’s ability to repeat as national champions, McLaughlin captured that confidence the best, crediting the team’s mixture of youth and experience that will eventually carry the Dips through the postseason.

“This team has what it takes to win its second consecutive national title,” McLaughlin said. “From our experienced seniors to our passionate freshmen, this team can go all the way. The combination of talent and heart alone will carry this team to be crowned the 2010 National Champions on May 23.”

Only time will tell, but based on recent history, F&M could be celebrating a third women’s lacrosse national title when everyone returns next September.