By Michele D’Altorio

Passion. Heart. Desire. For the Farmingdale High School varsity girl’s lacrosse team, undefeated as they prepare for the Class A County Championships, those are the words to play by.

The Dalers’ 12-0 record may imply an effortless route to the top (the girls finished No. 1 in their conference, guaranteeing them a spot in the Class A semifinals), but head coach Shari Campbell assures that the girls have worked hard to get where they are. “You’re not going to win just because it says ‘Dalers’ across your chest,” she says. “You have to bring something. You have to play with passion, you have to play with heart and you have to play with desire every single day.”

Helping Campbell make sure the team achieves these goals are Tara Coyle, Janine Hillier, Lauren Maksym and Brittany Olbeter, all seniors and first-time Dalers captains. While all the captains agree that their role is to bring the team together by motivating them and leading by example, each girl has her own unique way of doing so. “I don’t really scream and yell a lot,” Coyle explains. “I just try to set an example by always hustling, always helping my teammates out.” Hillier and Maksym describe themselves as vocal leaders, cheering the team on and helping them reach their goals during practices.

However, Olbeter, who Campbell describes as a fantastic leader with an exceptional personality, takes a somewhat different approach. “I don’t play that much,” Olbeter says. “I set an example for all the girls who may not start but are a part of this team just as much as anyone else is.” Olbeter also makes a point of highlighting when one of her teammates is having a good day. “You can give someone constructive criticism, but sometimes it hurts,” she says. “When you know that someone is looking at you do something well, I think it improves your game even more.

“They bring the most intensity, and they’re always, always working hard,” junior Melanie Raso says of her captains. “We all look up to them and just want to go as far for them.” All four captains will be starting college this fall. Besides Olbeter, who has chosen to focus on academics, they will all be playing lacrosse for their respective schools.

The Dalers will have some readjusting to do next season. When the captains graduate, nearly half the team will go with them - 14 of the 32 girls on the team are seniors. “Everything you can have in an athlete we have represented by these seniors,” Campbell says. “We’re losing so much talent,” Raso agrees. “It’s going to be a big change.”

In addition to losing talent, the girls will also be losing friends. Most of the Dalers have been playing lacrosse together since elementary school, and naturally, strong bonds and meaningful friendships have developed over time. “We played together since we started playing,” Olbeter says. “Now it’s going to be over.”

Graduation is just weeks away, and saying goodbye to nearly half the team will be tough, but the Dalers have a more immediate challenge to prepare for first. The girls are set to play Hicksville in the Class A Nassau County semifinals. A victory would take the Dalers to the finals. Next up would be the Long Island Championship against the winning Suffolk County team. Beating Suffolk secures a spot in the state semifinals, a familiar place for the Dalers. The girls have made the semifinals the last three years, winning and moving on to the state finals twice. They have never won the state finals.

Nevertheless, Campbell is confident they can go all the way this year. To prepare, the coaches will watch and analyze a lot of film of opposing clubs to break down team and individual player preferences. “We talk about offensive strategies of the opponents, defensive strategies of the opponents, and then what we have to do to attack what they’re going to try to do to us,” Campbell says. Additionally, three girls were recently brought up from junior varsity for the playoffs. The Dalers will also begin practicing seven days a week instead of the usual six. “If we can get past the strong Nassau and Suffolk teams, I think we have a great opportunity to win this year,” Campbell says.

As for the team, they will continue working hard to ensure they get better every day. “You have to play from this point on like it could be our last [game], so we’re just going to go out and play hard,” Hillier says.

Raso agrees. “If we bring our A-game every game and we work together, we can definitely go just as far as we’ve been going—further, actually,” she says. “We’re ready for them.”