Steinert Girls Lacrosse freshman goalie Heidi Martz looks down the field after the save. Photo by Michael A. Sabo
By Rich Fisher
Fish4scores.com
Mar. 29: It could have been a disaster.
Instead, it became an encouraging sign for the future.
With freshman Heidi Martz making her varsity lacrosse debut for Steinert, it took just 1 minute, 51 seconds for Lawrence to put its first two shots past her.
Martz’s confidence could have been shot before the season was even five minutes old.
But it wasn’t.
The 9th-grader settled in, kept the Spartans in the game and made six saves in what would be a 7-3, opening-day loss at LHS. Six of those goals came in the first half but she tightened up big-time in the second.
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“She’s a freshman, this was her first high school game; it was her first varsity game,” coach Lorraine Heisler said. “The second half she shut it down. I know she was kind of nervous going in because it was all those firsts for her, but she was able to really kind of show composure and made a lot of big saves for us.”
The most impressive aspect was that Heidi did not let things spiral out of control after the early onslaught.
“She didn’t let it get to her,” Heisler said. “She still kept her head in it, which was awesome. And we needed that a bunch. So thank goodness.
“I was worried with the goalie situation. I had Taylor (Brister) for four years, and Dylan (Phoenix) before that, and that was great. Now I’ll have Heidi for four years. We like to get them young and make them grow.”
As for the game itself, Steinert could not recover from the opening barrage, but Heisler was happy with the way her team played overall against a fairly strong Cardinal team. Ashley Goimbert, Kaylie “The Lifeguard” Skillman and Hannah Hart had goals while Erin Kopec had an assist.
“Overall I think the game was closer than the score reflected,” Heisler said. “It was a close game score wise but it was even closer with the way things were played. Overall I think there are good things to take away. We had some good transitions out of the defensive end, we were able to move the ball and make smart decisions with it. We have to fine tune and shine some things up to get the finish we want.”
