When a child begins playing a sport, there’s many reasons why they chose that sport. Either their parents wanted them to do something other than laying around the house, they wanted to play with their friends, they saw someone playing on tv, the list goes on. However, eventually kids stop playing their chosen sport, because they get bored, or it just wasn’t for them. But for a certain number of kids, the fire never burns out, and even fewer kids go D1. Among these few kids are Annie Alhusen and Maizey McCarthy. Proudly, they can say that they’re a part of the 3% that are offered a spot on a D1 women’s lacrosse team. 

McCarthy was introduced to lacrosse through Albemarle Girls Lacrosse League (AGLL) and their team coach, Peggy Williams, in the third grade, and then later on introducing Maizey to the goalie position. Flash forward to McCarthy said high school became much simpler socially after she joined the lacrosse team. Instead of coming into freshman year nervous and afraid, she came in strong from the peace of mind that her team would be there for her no matter what throughout her four years at Western Albemarle. “It’s nice to have such a close group on the field and also off the field,” McCarthy said. Now, years later as a senior, she’s met one of her best friends and her co-captain, Annie Alhusen.

Growing up in Maryland, Alhusen was introduced to lacrosse from her older sister, watching her play and eventually joining in. Moving to Virginia became much easier for Alhusen after joining the lacrosse team because, like McCarthy, she had a whole team of girls to have her back. However, there have been struggles that can seem invisible to everyone else. For Annie, staying motivated can be one of the hardest things about being an athlete. After Western’s toughest losses, it can be especially hard to be a leader and keep the team’s spirits up while facing your own internal battles, such as low motivation. However, they don’t face this alone. McCarthy said, “just debriefing with Annie; bad things that happen are always important to get off your chest, and then after we do that, just put it aside and move forward.”.

For the entire team, their coaches, Peggy Williams, Jordan Dudley, and Colleen Shear, who coached them over the summer, have been some of the biggest sources of motivation. One quote that stuck with them was something their coach said to the entire team: “If your entire life was a jar of jelly beans, and every day was a jelly bean, you give a lot of your jelly beans to lacrosse, so you should be proud and take care of all the jelly beans you give away to lacrosse.” To them, this means that they’ll forever cherish every team dinner, charity event, etc, because they never know when it’ll be their last.

Now, from being freshmen together, and now being co-captains, it’s safe to say that the duo have gone through a lot together. At the end of their junior year, the girls varsity lacrosse team voted for their upcoming captains. However, the girls didn’t find out that they had earned the title of captains until after the state champions. To them, this was an absolute thrill, especially since they had grown up looking up to their own captains, and now they get to do the same for the younger girls. “It’s exciting to see so many people learning, following, and falling in love with the sport and just enjoying being on the team and playing, which is how I felt when I first started,” McCarthy said.

In their final moments with Western and the girls varsity lacrosse team, they have a few things to say: “live in the moment and enjoy it. Celebrate the little moments, whether you’re scoring the goal or just getting a ground ball.”