Scholastic Notes

Midwest region

MISSOURI

GONNERMAN AND COR JESU CHARGE TO THIRD STRAIGHT MWAA TITLE

Kara Gonnerman has a penchant for scoring in Mid-West Athletic Association title matches.

Following goals in the 2004 and 2005 finals, she had the opener for St. Louis Cor Jesu (Mo.) in a 2-1 win over St. Louis Mary Institute-Country Day School (Mo.).

For all of Gonnerman's history, however, the game-winning goal didn't come from her stick. Instead, she helped spring teammates Gretchen Lulow and Abby Galen for a good one-two that Lulow sent into the cage.

"I've been dreaming about scoring a goal like that, and to do it in my last game in my high school career is truly amazing," Lulow tells The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

It was the third straight championship for the Chargers, and the fourth in head coach Mame LaVigne's six years as head coach.

"I'm blessed to have the chance to work with this group of girls; by the time they get to the varsity level, my job is to make them a team," LaVigne told The Post-Dispatch.

And the Villanova graduate, who teaches religion at the school, has done a pretty good job of it. Cor Jesu has played splendid hockey all season long, even against teams which matched up pretty well against it.

One of the Chargers' two blemishes on its record was a goalless draw against St. Louis Visitation (Mo.). And the MWAA playoff bracket had the two teams meeting in the first round. Cor Jesu got by the Vivettes 1-0.

Cor Jesu then got by the high-powered offense of Ladue (Mo.) 5-0, then met St. Louis Whitfield (Mo.), the tournament's Cinderella story. The Warriors upset St. Louis Ursuline (Mo.) and Edwardsville (Ill.) by identical 2-1 scores to get to the Final Four, but fell to the Chargers 3-1 in the semifinal round.

MICHIGAN

WONSAVAGE CLUBBING THE OPPOSITION

There was a highly unusual addition to the 540 or so players at the 2005 National Futures Tournament -- the first known player to make a regional team playing on a multi-school club team playing a varsity schedule.

The area around Washtenau, Mich., includes several school districts that do not have field hockey, including Saline, the residence of Courtney Wonsavage. She plays for the Washtenau Whippets, one of only two such clubs in the country that play a varsity schedule. The other is Swift Creek of Midlothian, Va. Another club team, the Poudre (Colo.) Fire, went out of existence when the town's high school added field hockey.

"Wonsavage is extremely hardworking and a great team player," Whippets coach Don Hes tells The Saline Reporter. "She has acquired her great goalkeeping skills over a very short period of time and continues working on refining those skills further. She is the type of person who can accomplish anything she sets her mind to."

PIONEER CONTINUES WHERE IT LEFT OFF

Jane Nixon, head coach of Ann Arbor Pioneer (Mich.) had to have been happy about her team's 7-0 season-opening drubbing of Grosse Pointe (Mich.) North, but perhaps a little worried about peaking too early.

"It's always good to have balanced scoring, but we're still in the mindset that we have a lot of work to do,'' Nixon tells The Ann Arbor News. "But it's exciting to see some of the hard work is working out.''

Evidently. Janna Robinson had four goals in the win.

ILLINOIS

EDWARDSVILLE DOESN'T SKIP A BEAT WITH NEW COACH

Katie Horvath was given the unenviable task of replacing legendary head coach Sharon Petty after her retirement from coaching Edwardsville (Ill.) during the offseason.

But it took only about a week for the Tigers to produce her maiden win, a 4-0 win over St. Louis Lutheran South (Mo.).

For last year's notes, click here.