TFA's girls lacrosse is thriving behind its underclassmen stars

As a seventh-grade athlete on a predominantly upperclassmen-based girls lacrosse team, Savannah Case felt an immense amount of pressure to do well. 

The only middle schooler on the team thought she couldn’t make a mistake, but through The First Academy’s special community of seniors, she began to feel comfortable. They welcomed her to the team with open arms and a loving nature. Those same seniors still contact Case, who now is a junior, to ask how TFA’s season is going. 

Now, the junior goalie is experiencing a much different landscape on TFA’s team as an upperclassman on a predominantly underclassmen team. Case is using her seventh-grade experience to help her understand the nerves the girls are facing. She treats them with respect, while offering a helping hand to the younger Royals who are proving age only is a number and it doesn’t define skill. 

“It’s funny because it wouldn’t be the like seventh-, sixth-graders that I would probably be helping because they’re so experienced, some of them have been playing club longer than me,” Case said. “(There’s) leadership over even some of the seniors that are playing that have never played before. There’s no hierarchy.”

Most high schools don’t have the opportunity to roster younger players, but with TFA’s unique blend of middle and high school into one, the team is finding success through the middle school athletes. 

The Royals’ roster of 23 girls is made up of four sixth-, two seventh- and three eighth-grade players. Through their efforts together, TFA has built one of the strongest girls lacrosse teams in Central Florida, producing a 9-2 record and No. 55 ranking in the nation. 

The DNA of TFA’s stats leaderboard is made up of those underclassmen, rather than junior and senior titles. The Royals leading scorer is eighth-grader Lily Rumble with 4.2 goals and just behind is eighth-grader Janie Thorndill with 3.3 goals per game. 

Both Class of 2030 athletes play for the M&D Orlando 2030 Black team. TFA’s head coach and the club director, Nikki Thorndill, said their team is No. 1 or No. 2 in the state and it’s No. 42 in the nation, so they’re playing at the highest level against some of the best club players in the country. 

The players’ club experience is what shaped them into the dominant players they are for TFA. Case said club lacrosse targets players who want to take their skills to the next level and its training reflects it. 

For lacrosse players, the essential training plan they have to master is wall ball, Nikki Thorndill said. Wall ball is when the player throws the ball at a wall and catches it to improve their passing, catching and overall stick skills. 

The eighth-graders spend two hours practicing lacrosse six days per week to maintain and grow their skills. Janie Thorndill said if practice only is an hour, she spends an additional hour of her own time practicing wall ball or sprints. Her teammates said she’s one of the fastest on the team. 

Freshman Hadley Dixon said the team not only is made up of older and younger players but also girls with different levels of experience. Although she’s an underclassman, she’s been playing lacrosse since second grade and joined TFA’s roster in sixth grade. The unique blend of ages and experience helps to shape the team’s knowledge. 

“Those girls that only have been playing for a few years, they bring in a new kind of knowledge that some of us would completely overlook, and sometimes that creates an opportunity that we never thought was there,” she said. 

It also has shaped how Nikki Thorndill approaches practices. 

“I think for this team, especially this age group, they use the word lenient,” she said. “I don’t think any past teams would ever describe me as lenient at practice, but when you coach little girls, they mentally and physically need to rest more.”

For the most part, being firm and telling players what she wants from them is the same across the board, but certain players like Case are different. She’s worked with Case a lot over the years and now that Case is a junior, Nikki Thorndill trusts her to make the proper adjustments as needed. 

The players look forward to TFA’s practices and games because of its flexibility. At club, they’re locked into one position and never fluctuate, while in high school they can test out different roles as they represent their Royals’ colors. 

The record and success didn’t begin overnight. It began when the girls fell in love with lacrosse years ago. 

Photo by Megan Bruinsma

YEARS IN THE MAKING

Dixon came from a lacrosse-based family. Her mom, aunt and grandmother all played the sport and they fell in love with it a long time ago. When Dixon was born, she was destined to enter lacrosse. In second grade she started playing recreational lacrosse and there she found her home. 

“Honestly I had played a lot of sports before that, but lacrosse was something that made me feel (different),” Dixon said. “There’s so many unique aspects to it that you don’t find in any other sport that made me attached to it.” 

Case had a similar pathway into lacrosse. She began playing because her sister-in-law and brother played. Once joining a rec league, she fell in love with the coordination lacrosse requires since they are using a stick that’s not attached to their bodies.

“Rec was where I first picked up a stick so I had no idea what I was doing and then rec was very fun,” Rumble said. “The games were really fun too, like 7-on-7, shorter field games and less players on the field. That’s where I learned lacrosse and that’s where I was like, ‘Oh this is what I want to play.’” 

She said if anyone wants to play club or high school lacrosse, they always should have some experience in rec first. Those recreational leagues served as their first formal introduction to the sport and were the grounds that shaped them today. 

But the technical pieces and the player relationships still are growing every day, and it’s part of what makes TFA so dominating on the field. 

Case said selfishness is a rare sight on the Royals’ roster, specifically on offense. The team has had 69 assists this year; the national average is 19. It’s the most assists she’s seen in her four years with the team. 

“We’re getting people that shot, not as many fast breaks, really settling down the ball and running plays and just collectively working together to get a goal,” Case said. “It’s not necessarily for individual game but for the whole team’s sake.” 

They’re extremely supportive of each other. Nikki Thorndill remembered when Ayla Conaway, a sixth-grader, scored for the first time against Edgewater and how she had the perfect side view of every attacker jumping up and down, cheering for her. 

“Since the beginning of the season we’ve moved a lot of stuff around and now I feel like we were saying our offense is clicking better and we’re feeling more confident in plays we’re making,” Dixon said.