The Atoms lacrosse season has come to a close with the end of the spring season. Both the JV and Varsity teams pushed themselves to reach new heights and improved their skills and coordination, as well as their communication skills as a team.
The team going into this year had many new players who came into the season with a new interest in the sport of lacrosse.
“This year was really fun and I would happily do it again next year,” freshman Keegan Sgro, who joined the sport for the first time this season, said. The team had a major increase in members this year as many of last year’s team, mainly varsity, consisted of mostly seniors.
One thing about the team is that most of the coaches are old Atoms lacrosse players. The wide variety of coaches allowed players to work on their different skills like facing off, which is the restart used at the beginning of each quarter, after every goal, and during overtime to determine who will have the ball next.
Another key skill that players work on is setting up their shots. Much like soccer, the sport consists of multiple lines of players, the team has defensive players, midfielders who alternate between defense and offense, and the attack whose main goal is to shoot at the goal. Along with the coaches helping Atoms athletes work on skills one coach leads all of them, Coach Bill Maglisceau.
Maglisceau has spent many years teaching at Annandale as well as coaching the lacrosse team and football team, shaping both of them, especially lacrosse, into what they are today. After a legendary career, he has decided to retire, with the 2026 season being his final season coaching.
“Coach Maglisceau was a great coach to have, he always hypes us up throughout the season, and ensured that we are ready to do our best at every game with a speech before we all leave the school or go up to the stadium,” sophomore Gabriel Tompkins said.
The Annandale lacrosse teams started rough this season, facing multiple schools that had extremely good teams. However, by the end of the season, both the Varsity and JV teams, using the skills they had practiced with coaches during practices, were able to help set up shots and improve game scores greatly. This increase in scores helped the Atoms achieve multiple wins including a game where the Atoms varsity lacrosse team won 11-1 against Lewis High School.
Though the scores were low towards the end of the season, the varsity team set new goals for many others in the future, to prove that Annandale is a strong competitor on the field and to get farther on the brackets in the future.
This year, the Varsity team sadly lost the playoff game against Hayfield Secondary School on May 14, however the team will take the loss and work on the skills to practice at the beginning of next season’s practices. With all the free time players have, they can now work on improving themselves in the offseason through lacrosse centered camps or self practice allowing themselves to keep their stick skills in check.
Looking ahead to the next couple of seasons, the team’s foundation looks incredibly solid with the increasing amounts of freshmen signing up. The team can easily start gearing older players up to step into larger leadership roles and fill the shoes of the upperclassmen who have moved on to college.
In Coach Maglisceau’s final chapter with the lacrosse team, he has changed the culture and relentless work ethic of the team to help them not only win but also reflect on their losses, having the team work harder on improving through adversity against tougher district rivals. Coach Maglisceau’s departure marks the end of a legendary era for Annandale, leaving behind a legacy of resilience. His presence on the sidelines will be deeply missed, however his training and way of doing things for the team will continue through the students he helped teach both in school and on the field.
