Scots’ Michienzi is lacrosse player of the year

Published May 4th, 2008

By Mario Sarmento
SPORTS EDITOR

Megan Michienzi is one of the best all-around lacrosse players in the area.

Michienzi, a senior at Saint Andrew’s, is so good Coach Charity Cox said she could play any position on the field. She did some of that last season, as injuries forced her into the starting lineup in midfield, where she reached double figures in goals and assists before moving back to her role at the top of the Scots’ defense this year.

Michienzi is thoughtful, smart and a team leader as one of the Scots’ captains. For all of her versatility, she is the Boca Raton News Girls

Lacrosse Player of the Year in 2008.

“She was very instrumental because not only is she a good player, she makes those around her better,” Cox said.
Michienzi started playing lacrosse in Connecticut when she was a young girl, but she said she never took it seriously because she was more involved with gymnastics.

Then, her family moved down to Florida, and she played on the Coral Springs Tomahawks Lacrosse team coached by Pine Crest’s Eileen Pliske when she was in seventh grade.

“I just fell in love with it,” Michienzi said. “I’d say the biggest thing is the camaraderie of the group. It’s a real team sport. It’s one of those sports where you have to get along with your team, or it doesn’t work.”

Michienzi came to Saint Andrew’s as a ninth-grader, and she’s been a four-year varsity starter.

Cox said she gets the job done with precision, finesse and anticipation rather than brute physical force.

“She knows what to do but knows when to do it,” Cox said. “She can execute at the right time.”

Michienzi thought her time in the midfield was fine, but defense is what she enjoys most.

“I like how you’ve kind of got your three players there, and you have a unit back there,” she said. “It’s kind of like your own mini-team within the team.

You can see the whole field, it’s easy to help out other people. I like being a safety net.”

She’s also another coach on the field, according to Cox.

“She’s our director because she’s so vocal,” she said, adding that she could see Michienzi coaching someday.

Michienzi said she hadn’t thought much of coaching until she started to hear from Cox and others on her staff.

“They do tell me that all the time,” she said. “I never thought of it like that until they told me.”

This season, Michienzi helped lead the Scots to the district title, though their season ended abruptly at the hands of arch-rival Park Vista in the regionals.

“Overall I have to admit beginning of the season I was a little nervous because we lost so many seniors and it was a tight-knit group,” she said.

“We just came together in such a way this year, it was unbelievable.”

Cox thought Michienzi played her best match of the season against the Cobras, never letting up even even when the outcome was no longer in doubt.

Next year, Michienzi will attend Villanova, where she said she will probably play club lacrosse and not at the varsity level.

“The varsity commitment in college is overwhelming, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted that for sure,” Michienzi said.

She added that it was hard to balance school and lacrosse at Saint Andrew’s last year, and Michienzi, who has a high GPA, wants to focus on her education while in school.

Her preferred college major is communications, and she has already done an internship at Our Town News and is a co-editor at the school newspaper.