(Photo by Stephen Goldsmith) PULLING THE TRIGGER: Stuart Country Day lacrosse junior star Caroline Passano looks for an opening in action this spring. Passano scored 103 points on 57 goals and 46 assists this spring to help Stuart go 13-5 and win its fourth straight state Prep B title.

Stuart Lax Star Passano, PDS Tennis’ Holland Earn Nod as Town Topics Spring Standouts

Bill Alden

Caroline Passano started the spring struggling with a leg injury, hampering her ability to trigger the offense for the Stuart Country Day lacrosse team.

The Tartans seemed out of synch in the earlier going as junior midfielder Passano worked through the pain.

As the season went into the second week of April, Passano was back at full speed and Stuart hit its stride.

The Tartans emerged as a power, toppling such Prep A teams as Hun and Lawrenceville and posting wins over Colonial Valley Conference schools like WW/P-N and Princeton High.

Taking her game to a higher level, Passano became the catalyst for the Stuart attack with her deft passing and shooting skill. Combining with fellow junior Elizabeth Bucklee, the Tartans were able to overpower one foe after another.

Passano scored five goals and had six assists in a 20-10 win over the George School and then had six goals and three assists in a 14-3 win over Rutgers Prep. In the wins over Hun and WW/P-N, Passano piled up eight points on five goals and three assists in each game.

With its attack continuing to click, Stuart rolled to its fourth straight Prep B in mid-May, routing Rutgers Prep 16-8 in the championship game with Passano scoring one goal and piling up six assists.

Passano, who ended the season with 103 points on 57 goals and 46 assists, acknowledged that she took a lot of pride in her passing.

“I do play center so that’s half of my job,” said Passano. “That’s a big thing for me, just making sure that it gets from the defense to the midfield and down the field.”

A big factor in Passano’s productivity was having classmate Bucklee on the receiving end of so many passes.

“We’ve played together for six years; I always know where she is going to be and she always knows where I’m going to be,” said Passano of Bucklee, who scored 82 goals.

Stuart head coach Sara Wagner credited Passano’s passing prowess with triggering the attack for the Tartans

“It’s funny because Caroline is a natural goal scorer,” said Wagner, whose team ended the season with a 13-5 record.

“She wants to go; we had to work on getting her to pass. But she is unselfish and it shows in her having such great passing.”

Passano, for her part, was thrilled to see the team’s hard work result in a season to remember.

“This year has been phenomenal,” maintained Passano. “We have seen our potential but showing it is a different thing. This year, we were really able to crank it up as a unit. The transitions have been key in comparison to years before. It hadn’t gone as well as it has gone this year; that’s been a difference in a lot of games.”

As a key performer who made a huge difference for Stuart this spring, Caroline Passano is the choice as the Town Topics’ top female performer of the spring high school season.

Top Male Performer

It’s not often that a high school athlete’s tenure with a team is described as an “era” but that turned out to be the case for Princeton Day School boys’ tennis senior superstar David Holland.

In reflecting on Holland’s career, PDS head coach Rome Campbell used that wording.

“It is the end of an era, he hasn’t lost a match in three years,” said Campbell of the Duke-bound Holland who led the Panthers to four straight state prep B team titles.

“We checked it out and figured out that he hasn’t lost a set over that period.”

After an off-season which saw him climb into the national top 20 in his age group, Holland wasted no time this spring showing his high school foes that his game had reached an even higher level.

The lanky lefthander showed grit as well as talent in topping WW/P-S’ Leland Richardson 6-1, 7-5 in the first singles title match at the Mercer County Tournament in late April.

Fighting off leg cramps and unable to run hard or push off on his serve, Holland relied on his sharp groundstrokes to pull out the match.

“He made some adjustments in his game, he didn’t go for the big serve,” recalled Campbell. “He tried to avoid pushing off his quads; that’s where he was experiencing most of his cramping. He’s a smart player.”

Holland had to summon up his powers of concentration to survive Richardson and the fans on hand hoping for an upset.

“It’s tough to play with the crowd this way; you’ve got 50 guys rooting against you,” said Holland. “There was a lot of pressure; everyone expects me to win.”

Holland put the pressure on his foes the rest of the spring as he hardly lost a game in posting his third straight unbeaten campaign. He culminated his PDS career by topping Dan Turtel of Ranney 6-0, 6-4 in the first singles final at the Prep B tournament.

Holland was proud of the progress he made on the court during his PDS career. “I’ve gotten more consistent; I’ve kept it going into this year,” said Holland, who plans to play some national tournaments this summer.

“I wasn’t ranked that highly when I was a freshman. I think I was No. 90 in my class, I’ve got that up to 15. It’s a big jump.”

He also enjoyed assuming a leadership role for the team. “It’s definitely different from freshman year, a lot of seniors didn’t like me taking their spot,” said Holland.

“I’m looked up to now, I guess. I like cheering the guys on, helping them at practice when I can.”

Campbell knows that the end of the Holland era will leave a void in the program.

“He certainly brings a lot to our lineup, everybody else is much more confident and assured in their positions,” said Campbell.

“They highly respect Dave and his stature as a player, teammate, and a captain.”

For bringing titles and a lot more to the PDS program, Holland gets the nod as the Town Topics’ top male performer of the spring season.

Top Newcomers

At the outset of the 2008 season, Hun School softball head coach Kathy Quirk was looking to ease freshman pitcher Meghan Hayes into the team’s pitching rotation.

“My goal is to split the time and have one pitch one game and the other pitch one game unless one is really overpowering,” said Quirk, referring to her pitching tandem of Hayes and sophomore Ashley Hamilton. “They work well together. It’s good to have two pitchers.”

But Quirk’s plan changed when Hayes pitched the Raiders to a 1-0 win over eventual Prep A champion Peddie on April 15. Showing composure beyond her years, Hayes held the powerful Falcons to four hits.

After that, Hayes generally got the assignment in Hun’s big games, a duty she handled with aplomb as Hun ended up advancing to the state Prep A title game.

“Meghan has maturity; she just does her job,” asserted Quirk, whose team finished the season 12-5 with Hayes going 10-2 in her appearances. “She knows that she has fielders behind her.”

Hayes, for her part, adjusted quickly to pitching at the high school level. “It’s a little different knowing that most of the girls are older than me,” said Hayes. “I’m used to it; I play on a U-16 travel team. Having a good team behind me really helps.”

Hayes’ blend of talent and composure makes her the pick as the Town Topics top female newcomer of the spring season.

In the wake of its 2007 state championship campaign, the Princeton High boys’ golf team was hit by some key graduation losses.

The Little Tigers lost top player Peter Teifer and solid performer George Graham.

While longtime PHS head coach Sheryl Severance had a superb trio of seniors, Jon Bichsel, Will Madden, and Curtis Smith, she knew she needed more depth if the team was going to challenge for another state crown.

The Graham family helped fill that gap as George’s younger brother, freshman Fraser, stepped up for PHS.

“He’s a nice little player,” said Severance. “He hits the ball straight down the fairway,”

Graham, who starred for the PHS boys’ ice hockey team over the winter, proved to be a straight shooter all spring for the Little Tigers. In the Mercer County Tournament in early May, he shot an 81 to tie for 14th in the individual standings and help PHS take second in the team standings.

A week later, Graham fired an 86 to help PHS place second in the Group III Central-South Jersey sectional.

The Little Tigers ended up repeating as Group III state champions with Graham following in his brother’s footsteps as a key member of the supporting cast.

For producing a debut season that saw him end up as a valuable contributor to a state champion, Graham gets the nod as the Town Topics’ top male newcomer of the spring season.

Top Coaches

Jon Stone last coached lacrosse when he served as assistant coach for the Hun School boys’ team in the spring of 2005.

Stone, the longtime head coach of the Hun boys’ basketball program, was starting to get used to having his springs free.

But in late January, Hun girls’ lacrosse head coach Lauren Provenzano left the school to pursue another career and Stone was pressed into service as her replacement.

The 6’8 Stone, a former Colgate basketball star, knew he faced a big learning curve as the girls’ game differs from the brand of lacrosse played by boys both in terms of rules and style.

Consulting other girls’ lax coaches, Stone worked hard to get himself up to speed on the girls’ game. He used the team’s annual preseason trip to Florida as a seminar on the game.

Early in the spring, it became clear that Stone had picked up the nuances of the girls’ game as Hun got out of the gate with a 3-0 record, showing a well-choreographed offense and a stingy defense.

The Raiders went on to have a superb season, going 12-5 and making it to the semifinals of both the state Prep A and Mercer County tournaments.

In reflecting on the season, Stone was proud of what his team accomplished.

“I think overall it was a successful season,” asserted Stone, noting that four of the losses on the season came to two teams, eventual MCT and sectional champ HoVal and Peddie, the state Prep A runners-up.

“We progressed in just a little bit of everything. The defense solidified; our goalie ViVi Washington got better and better. The chemistry was good: the girls had fun with each other.”

For learning on the fly and helping his team make that across-the-board improvement, Stone is the choice as the top coach among girls’ teams in the spring season.

On one hand, Princeton High boys’ tennis head coach Sarah Heyman was happy to have four seniors in her lineup.

But at the same time, she knew that her veterans could fall prey to the distractions that come with the spring of senior year.

“I hope the reality of what we could do will sink in,” said Heyman, as she looked ahead to the 2008 season. “This group has been together for four years, they have all come into their own. We did really well last year and some of the other teams have lost people.”

The Little Tigers held their focus, pinning loss after loss on their foes in piling up a 15-1 regular season record in dual-match play.

In the state tournament, the PHS seniors, singles players Matt Ullmann and David Zheng together with the first doubles team of Ari Silver and Ben Weingarten, produced a stretch drive to remember.

The Little Tigers breezed to a 4-1 win over Freehold in the Central Jersey Group III quarterfinals. PHS nearly saw its season end in the sectional semifinals against WW/P-N but Ullmann came from behind at first singles to give PHS a 3-2 win.

PHS then topped Ocean Township 3½ to 1½ in the sectional finals. The win marked the first sectional title for Heyman, who also coaches the PHS girls’ program.

In the state Group III semifinals, PHS came agonizingly close to making it to the state finals but fell 3-2 to perennial power Millburn.

While Heyman was disappointed by that result, she was able to put the season in perspective.

“It’s always a little bit disappointing when you come so close; you almost made it but you didn’t,” said Heyman, whose team finished with an 18-2 record

“But we were the sectional champs which was exciting for them. We gave Millburn, which has been a classic powerhouse over the years, a run for their money.”

Heyman’s success in keeping her team focused so they could make a special run makes her the choice as the top coach among boys’ teams this spring.

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