High School Lacrosse
REGULAR SEASON
May 9, 2007
Ballard girls' cage has gone to the "dogs"
By NATHAN CHAMBERS
BeyondTheDerby.com
Kentucky Country Day girls’ lacrosse coach Patrick McAnulty heard “Bulldog” hollered from the Ballard sideline during a recent game.
“What the heck is a Bulldog?” he asked.
He must have missed those “Mad Dog” shouts.
The “Bulldog” is senior Amanda Laferty, Ballard’s starting goalie. “Mad Dog” is her successor, junior Madison Weakley, who also plays defense. Ballard coaches Mark Vanderwerp and Dane Brown call them their “Canine Unit.”
“People hear us yell, ‘Nice stop, Bulldog. Nice stop, Mad Dog,’” said Brown, whose fifth-seeded Bruins (2-3-2) will play fourth-seeded Collegiate (3-2-2) in the first round of the Kentucky Lacrosse Association Division 1 tournament on Thursday. “They probably think, ‘These girls have weird names.’”
But the nicknames are apt. Laferty (pictured at right) has been known as “Bulldog” since her days as a field hockey player at Kammerer Middle School because she was unusually aggressive at that age.
“She came charging straight at girls on penalty corners,” Vanderwerp said. “There was no fear in her.”
The “Bulldog” was Ballard’s starting goalkeeper when Weakley arrived as a freshman, and Vanderwerp thought it made perfect sense to add a “Mad Dog” to the team. It fit Weakley’s first name, and she was “a little wild,” Brown said.
Weakley said she became interested in the sport when she was an eighth-grader at Kammerer. She watched a boys’ lacrosse video and loved the physical contact between players.
“I wanted to hit people,” she said.
During a meeting for prospective girls’ lacrosse players at Kammerer, however, she learned that she wouldn’t be allowed to hit people on the field. But she didn’t walk out. Instead, when the girls were asked if a goalie was among them and no one else raised a hand, Weakley volunteered.
She was the goalie for Ballard’s junior varsity team during her freshman and sophomore years, and she was Laferty’s backup on the varsity team when this season began. But it’s not her favorite position.
“I like playing in the field more than playing goalie right now,” Weakley (pictured at right) said.
She played a half in the cage in each of Ballard’s first two Kentucky Lacrosse Association Division 1 games before it was all but decided that Laferty would be the full-time goalie and Weakley would play elsewhere for the rest of the season. As a former basketball player, Weakley has skills that make her an effective defensive player.
“We’ll let (Weakley) have some fun in the field,” Vanderwerp said. “She’s going to be a good goalie next year.”
Laferty is one of six seniors - including Cassie Criscillis, Meredith Fine, Trish Hickerson, Emily Nash, and Leah Vanderwerp - who were part of Kammerer’s first girls’ lacrosse team that Mark Vanderwerp and Brown started during the 2002-03 school year. The coaches followed that class to Ballard, and they’ve learned the sport together.
“We’re having fun, and we’re getting a lot out of it,” said Laferty, who also started for Ballard’s field hockey team each of the last two years. “We’ve grown and learned a lot as a team.”
She has been their goalie all along.
“She’s had some great games over the years, games that she’s won for us,” Brown said.
In perhaps her best game yet, Laferty made 20 saves in a 14-10 loss to unbeaten KCD on April 23. That’s the kind of performance that Ballard will need in the tournament.
“I couldn’t hardly get to my car after the game,” Vanderwerp said. “All these KCD parents stopped me to tell me we have an amazing goalie. That was a great time for her to pull out her best, that’s for sure.”