With a number of coaching changes this offseason, teams like Wheat Ridge and Chatfield could emerge as contenders. (Dennis Pleuss)
It’s a whole new ballgame.
At least for the scope of the Colorado girls lacrosse scene, which underwent several changes this past offseason.
It wasn’t the rulebook or the addition of classifications that were changed since teams last took the field in May. It was the turnover of coaches in the sport that dominated headlines in the summer and through the early part of the fall season.
At least 10 programs went through coaching changes in the offseason, which accounts for nearly 20 percent of the teams that compete in the sport. The most notable of those changes include traditional powerhouses Cherry Creek and Air Academy.
In June, longtime Kadets coach Sean Harmon — the only coach in program history — resigned to spend more time with his family. Harmon brought three state championships to Air Academy in his time as coach, including the 2014 title. In December, the school announced that Chelsea Beal — a 2008 Air Academy graduate — would fill the position.
“(Beal) comes from a blueprint,” Chaparral coach Dix Baines said. “She was one of Sean’s former players who went out and got some college experience and is back with that experience. I would assume the coaching style will be different but they’re going to continue to be good.”
For Cherry Creek, the search for a new coach is nothing new as they have named three new coaches since 2009. The team named assistant Kathryn Ames as the successor to Brianne Tierney who led the Bruins to the state title game in both seasons as coach. Cherry Creek won the title in 2013.
With Harmon and Tierney gone, it now begs the question as to what the landscape of girls lacrosse will look like. One would have to look all the way back to 2005 for the last time Air Academy or Cherry Creek did not walk away with a state championship.
The departure of Harmon officially makes Wheat Ridge’s Carol Degenhart the longest tenured girls lacrosse coach in the state. The impact of changes to the coaching ranks certainly isn’t lost on her.
“This year has been unusual in that all of the top four programs from last year changed coaches,” Degenhart said. “Several of them had been around for a long time so I think it was a little bit of pure chance that it all came at once.”
With the influx of these fresh-faced coaches comes new ways to teach and play to the game. The good news for the veteran coaches like Degenhart and Baines, who is now the second-longest tenured coach, is that the change in styles force them to adjust their systems on a yearly basis.
“If you’re going to stay current with the game, I don’t think that it’s any different than football,” Baines said. “Look at the New England Patriots, who re-invent themselves every year. Whatever worked last year, you just throw it out the window, look at the pieces you have now and try to put the pieces together again.”
This year stands out more than any other in recent memory because the playing field may actually be more level than it has been in some time. There is a feeling that schools such as Arapahoe, Chatfield and Cheyenne Mountain could compete at the same high level that Cherry Creek and Air Academy have for the last 10 years.
“There is more of a changing of positions at the top,” Degenhart said. “I think there will be some people sliding in and some of those top programs may be fighting to keep the positions (at the top) that they’ve held for so long.”
When CHSAANow.com’s preseason poll was released on Monday, Air Academy was No. 1. Centaurus, another team with a coaching change, is No. 2.
Girls lacrosse preview
Season begins: March 5
Postseason begins: May 3
State championship: May 20
Returning all-state athletes: Kendra Lanuza, senior, Chatfield, middle/attacker; Andrea Kim, junior, Centaurus, attacker; Alexis Lindhart, senior, Arapahoe, middle; Kathleen Roe, junior, Regis Jesuit, middle