RallyNorth.net

Croyle makes switch look easy

Tuesday, May, 06 By Matt Jenkins
Staff writer

Julia Croyle has hardly had any time to mourn the end of her high school softball career.

Then again, you really can't afford to look back when hard rubber balls are being fired in your direction at frightening rates of speed.

Croyle, a three-time Cape Ann League all-star at catcher for Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School, made the switch from softball to lacrosse this spring when the softball program at school was disbanded due to lack of interest.

In the process, she turned her focus from playing a familiar position in a comfortable endeavor to attacking a brand new sport while learning one of its most difficult positions.

While Croyle willingly accepted the challenge of stepping in front of the cage as a goalie, the decision to change sports wasn't as difficult as it sounds. In truth, the only decision Croyle really made was to pick up a lacrosse stick and give a new sport a chance.

"It was a hard transition at first. I didn't really understand the game at all," Croyle said of lacrosse. "I was just trying to stop as many shots as I could that were coming at me. I had been working with Mr. (Jim) LaSelva (the Hamilton-Wenham boys lax coach) during captain's practices and he kind of helped me understand the basics | the footwork, where I should stand, and how to hold the stick. It was very awkward because a good percentage of shots in lacrosse are going to go in. The majority probably will be goals."

After carefully gauging the interest surrounding the H-W softball program in late winter, Croyle | never one to sit back and take a season off | started thinking about alternatives. Lacrosse was an obvious possibility.

The Generals lacrosse team had a glaring need in goal after the graduation of CAL All-League selection and Boston College recruit Sheila Serafino.

"The lacrosse girls knew softball probably wasn't going to happen and just jokingly they would say, 'You should become the lacrosse goalie,'" Croyle said. "I can't just sit around, so I said I'd try."

Croyle is the type of person who doesn't just put a little effort into something, then give up if it's not going well. Croyle, Hamilton-Wenham's nominee for The Salem News Student-Athlete Award, has built a reputation as a hard worker, and her approach with lacrosse has not tarnished that.

"She got some videos and watched how to be a goalie, and did some work with Coach LaSelva the week before we started," Hamilton-Wenham coach Daphne Faldin said. "Julia's been amazing. I feel bad because I don't get to spend a ton of time with her because I'm the only coach for 20 kids, but she's so tough. She gets hit and you can tell it hurts, but she just shakes it off."

The bruises have built up as she has helped the Generals to a 5-5 start. Although Croyle knows it is a more physically demanding position than playing catcher, there have been some things that she has been able to carry over from one sport to the other.

"A lot of the body positioning was the same and you're trying to stop the ball with a stick, but with bounced shots you're still trying to get your body in front of it," said Croyle, who recently committed to Denison University in Ohio.

"In softball, you're using your body for a ball in the dirt, and that was something that transitioned over. Where to stand and expecting a shot and angling your body was also something familiar from softball."