CENTRAL VALLEY – You gotta find lessons to take with you whenever you can. Even if you may want to completely forget what happened.
Although falling 14-2 in the Section 9 Class B sectional final to an extremely talented Warwick team on Friday afternoon, the FDR girls lacrosse program still considers the season a rousing success. With the program still in its’ relative infancy overall, starting in 2016, the Presidents team was able to reach the sectional final for the first time in school history behind an incredibly young cast of student-athletes.
No matter the final result, momentum is pointing upwards for the program as a whole.
“Juliana Jones was the only senior in the starting lineup and she got injured so we were doing this with no seniors as starters… It was a year of firsts. It was great, the girls were fantastic and we’re bringing back a nice core. That’s for sure.” Dan Schmitt, the head coach of FDR said after the loss.”
Even with receiving the runner-up medals after a brutal loss, there was a sense of overall enthusiasm and an uplifting spirit from the student-athletes walking off the field for the final time this season. With such hope and optimism ahead, it’s something the head coach is grateful for.
“They’re an amazing group. They’re bubbly and fun, they keep you on your toes,” Schmitt said with a laugh. “There’s a youthful enthusiasm, it’s just infectious.”
Along with hoping to return nearly the entire team, the coach is hopeful that the experience of reaching this stage will only fuel the team for the years to come. Both with a pure desire to not let the failure occur again and the much-needed experience of seeing what the pressure-packed moments will bring.
“This is invaluable, to come here on a stage like this and try to perform against an opponent on the level like that. You either win or you learn and today we learned,” he said. “We’ll try to be a little bit better next year, that’s all you can do.”
Bringing back nearly everyone, there’s a couple of budding stars in the program that certainly give the coach even more of a boost of confidence for what next year bring. The two leading scorers on the team, freshman Sadie Finn and sophomore Ella Sardino were major catalysts to the overall success of the 13-5 record the Presidents finished with.
Two extremely determined and talented members who are already leaders in the locker room, Schmitt is more than excited to see how they develop even further.
“They really became smart and mature players. They were wise beyond their years and it really was an impressive feat,” he said. “They just turned it on and took off.”
This article originally appeared on Poughkeepsie Journal: FDR girls lacrosse falls in sectional final, looks to future
Reporting by Eric Decker, Poughkeepsie Journal / Poughkeepsie Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
