A love of the game

Lacrosse goalies at rival schools find common ground

Friday, June 9, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff Photo by Darwin Weigel Huntingtown’s Megan O’Brien and Northern’s Jon Athens play goalie on the lacrosse team of each one’s school. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

Athens, who has been a stalwart in goal for the Patriots the last three seasons, met O’Brien her freshman season and certainly not under the most tender circumstances.

O’Brien was doing an impromptu dance to keep warm prior to practice when Athens rushed up and took her legs out from under her.

‘‘I didn’t think she’d fall,” Athens said, ‘‘but she wiped out.”

‘‘My first thought was that it was [Jon’s brother] Andrew,” O’Brien said. ‘‘When I fell down I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry so I laughed and cried.”

Because both were seeing other people, the couple didn’t go on their first date until Athens asked her out 18 months later.

‘‘Was I surprised that he asked me out?” O’Brien said. ‘‘I was really happy. I even cried.”

‘‘I was just real confused,” Athens said of the tears, which he later learned were of joy.

Dating a goalie from a rival high school isn’t easy and the two have gotten barbs from their classmates and teammates.

‘‘Some people have said the only reason I’m goalie is because Jon’s a goalie,” O’Brien said of her switch from midfielder this spring. ‘‘I really had no intention of playing goalie so it really makes me laugh. They also say that I try to be like Jon when I come out [of the goal] to clear the ball.”

And that’s not even taking into consideration that she must choose which school she should show allegiance. Therefore, she cheers for both.

‘‘I cheer for Jon and I cheer for [Jon’s brother] Peter and in general I cheer for Northern,” O’Brien said, ‘‘but at the same time if a Huntingtown player asks if I cheer for them I say yes. If Northern does something well, I cheer for them and then if Huntingtown does something well, I cheer for them. I know both sides equally so I’m loyal to both. It’s really hard to choose.”

The two rising seniors have been seeing each other for only 9 1⁄2 months now but sometimes it seems like they’ve been together for 9 1⁄2 years.

O’Brien has adapted well to the ‘‘What’s mine is mine and what’s yours in ours” motto when she admitted that she had ‘‘adopted” one of Jon’s goalie sticks. She even lopped several inches off the top of the stick so it would be regulation size.

A few weeks ago, some members of the Huntingtown boys lacrosse team asked O’Brien how they could score on her boyfriend. But O’Brien probably couldn’t have answered them even if she wanted to, which she didn’t.

‘‘I told them, ‘I don’t know, I can’t do it,’” she said. ‘‘The only times I’ve ever scored on him was last summer but he didn’t like it because he said I was too close.”

‘‘She cheated,” Jon said, stretched out on a bleacher seat like a lizard in the midday sun.

‘‘Girls move in and shoot a lot closer than boys do,” O’Brien quipped.

‘‘She was just two feet away,” he answered.

‘‘I think Jon should have to play girls lacrosse,” she said, ‘‘because they shoot from much closer. Is [shooting on each other] banned now? No, but we just don’t do it anymore. We also don’t play basketball, because I get too intense so it just never turns out well.”

But while they may sometimes act like a married couple, the pair’s athletic achievements have seemed like a match made in heaven, as both have made it a habit of stopping opposing shooters with regularity.

The 2006 All-County first team boys lacrosse goalie, Athens made 152 saves this season and finished it with a save percentage of 63. He stymied Jefferson High shooters 18 times and stopped 14 shots in a win over Madison High.

‘‘I’m athletic so I think that helps with my movement to the ball but the rest really just comes with practice,” Athens said. ‘‘Usually I’m just thinking about getting ready for the shot. On outside shots I can focus on the ball but if they’re in a lot closer it’s more of a find the ball and guess which way it’s going to go.”

‘‘I know how important it is to make your players aware of what to expect when playing against a good goalie,” said Huntingtown coach Vic Goeller, whose team averaged just four goals a game against the junior. ‘‘If you make mistakes against Jon he can make you pay for it. He makes shooters try to be perfect and when they do that it can cause the shooter to make mistakes. I believe a lot of Northern’s success this year was because they had Jon between the pipes.”

Athens scored his first career goal March 23 against Chopticon when he rushed the length of the field and whipped a shot past the Braves’ goalie.

‘‘He was super-excited,” O’Brien said, ‘‘and I was standing up and yelling because I was so excited for him.”

‘‘Did she buy me dinner?” Athens repeated after being asked by a reporter. ‘‘No, because I always buy her dinner.”

O’Brien, who attended Northern her freshman year before transferring to Huntingtown when the school opened in the fall of 2004, was a midfielder her sophomore season but incoming coach Maggie Pike needed a net minder and Goeller suggested O’Brien.

‘‘I had a chance to see Megan play basketball and noticed she was one of the most athletic girls on the team with great hand-eye coordination,” said Goeller, who as a sophomore was the starting goalie for Anne Arundel Community College, which finished fourth in the nation. ‘‘When I found out that she was dating Jon, I mentioned to her that the girls team needed an athletic goalie and that she should give it a try.”

‘‘Vic said something along the lines that girls’ coaches always put the most non-athletic player in the cage when it’s the most important position on the field,” Pike said. ‘‘And he suggested Megan should play goal.”

O’Brien said she was not thrilled with the prospect of standing between the pipes.

‘‘My first thought was, ‘Yeah, right. No way,’” O’Brien said. ‘‘Miss Pike said, ‘I really need a goalie,’ and I was like, ‘OK, good for you,’ but she told me that I should seriously think about it.

‘‘I talked to Jon about it and he kind of laughed but I thought that if I was going to be goalie that I needed to know how it’s done. I had watched him [play goal] before but it’s kind of different being in there and doing it yourself.”

Athens admitted his first thought of his girlfriend becoming Huntingtown’s starting goalie wasn’t encouraging.

‘‘Good Lord, she’s little,” Athens said of the 5-foot-1 O’Brien. ‘‘I was really surprised because she was really good at midfield but I was also actually excited for her.”

The day before spring practice started, O’Brien, dressed in pads and with what used to be Jon’s goal stick, took her place in front of the goal as Goeller prepared to shoot.

‘‘My first thought was, ‘Don’t hit me in the head,’” O’Brien said. ‘‘He aimed one right at my face and I ran out of the goal. He said, ‘Megan, that’s why you have a helmet on,’ and I said, ‘So?’

‘‘Coach Vic showed me how to step to the ball and how I needed to hold my stick but the mindset [of standing there facing a shot] was the hardest thing to do.”

In order to prepare her for shots toward the mask, Goeller hit her softly in the helmet from a few feet out. But the drill didn’t do much to alleviate O’Brien’s fears.

‘‘It didn’t hurt,” she said, ‘‘but I think that’s because I was so scared about how bad it would hurt. Toward the middle of the season I had bruises on my legs and some parts of my body would be very tender after being hit over and over again. My teammates would always tease me by saying, ‘Megan, you’re wearing pads, why does it hurt so bad?’”

Besides the prospect of getting hit by the ball, O’Brien said it also took some getting used to that she was her team’s last line of defense.

‘‘I worked hard at getting better but the hardest thing was knowing that it was going to hit me and some shots were going to go in,” she said. ‘‘Against Leonardtown I wasn’t doing well so it was hard to look at the scoreboard and see that the ball had to get past me to get a goal and 10 of them went past. It was hard to get acclimated to the fact that I’m the last line [of defense].”

But O’Brien also succeeded as her team’s last line of defense and even recorded a shutout against Great Mills on April 21.

‘‘It was a little nerve-wracking in the fourth quarter because they had two goals called back [for crease violations],” O’Brien said. ‘‘I was nervous because everybody was playing well so I didn’t want to let my team down but I was pretty pumped afterwards.”

O’Brien was later named to the All-SMAC second team and a place on the All-County first team. She had a save percentage of 68 and won Huntingtown’s defensive award.

‘‘I said, ‘You’re going to do well,’ but I didn’t think she was going to do as well as she did,” Athens said. ‘‘She impressed me and I’m real proud of her.”

‘‘I had never seen Megan play field before, so I had no idea what I was losing or gaining, for that matter,” Pike said. ‘‘Word had gotten to me as to how quick she was and as soon as I saw her, memories of [2001 All-County and SMAC most valuable player and current starter at Longwood University] Emily Wilson popped right back into my head.

‘‘I have never coached a kid that worked so hard at her position as Megan. She worked before and during practice and stayed after to work one on one with Vic. She has this desire within her that when she wants something she will do anything to achieve it. The drive within her is amazing.”

Goeller added: ‘‘When you try to select someone to play goalie you look for someone who is aggressive, not afraid of contact, good hand-eye coordination, good footwork and most importantly a good leader. Megan possesses all of those qualities. When I [first] mentioned the idea to Coach Pike I think she had some reservations about putting one of her better midfielders in the goal, but it definitely worked out great for everyone involved.”

After an interview earlier this week, both players walked toward the parking lot, eyes locked on each other while lugging goalie equipment.

‘‘I haven’t seen Megan play much, but I understand that their strengths are pretty similar,” Northern boys lacrosse coach Joe Bissette said. ‘‘Both are great athletes who love their team and their sport and give 100 percent every time they walk on the field. You have to have that kind of personality to succeed when you play goalie.”

And you sometimes also have to know how to be knocked down, which in this case, seems to have led to the start of a relationship, both on and off the field.

E-mail Michael Reid at mreid@somdnews.com.