Senior Laura Shane says her younger brother used to tease her about being a goalkeeper. “He liked to say, ‘How hard can it be? All you have to do is put your stick in front of the ball.’” Then Nathan Shane tried the game and discovered it was “way rougher” than he expected, says his sis, or “Shaner,” as she’s known to her teammates and the lax heads (lacrosse fans) who turn out for varsity games at Laird Q. Cagan Stadium.
Shane doesn’t step into the goal cage, where balls can blaze past at 75 mph, without a chest protector, throat guard, padded gloves and barred helmet designed to deflect the energy of direct impacts. “I guess some people say you have to be a little crazy, but I don’t think I’m too crazy,” she says. “When you’re having a good day, everything is just slowed down a little bit and you’re seeing the ball really well—from when it’s shot, all the way in to your stick.”
At press time, the two-time All-American had tallied 17 saves four times this season—against 10th-ranked Notre Dame, No. 3 Maryland, Boston College and LeMoyne. She has the country’s second-highest save total (134) and second-highest save percentage (.554).
“The early wins gave us a lot of confidence,” Shane says in reference to key victories over East Coast powerhouses Notre Dame (13-9) and Boston College (14-10). “I would say the win over [No. 5] Penn (10-8) was the biggest game in our program’s history so far.”
A glance at the roster suggests that the popularity of lacrosse still is centered well east of the Mississippi. Many Cardinal players come from Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, and six hail from Ohio. “Go Stilly & OH girls!” read the T-shirts worn by 17 players from Columbus’s Thomas Worthington High School, in town for a tournament, who turned out March 22 to cheer on sophomore Amy Stillwell and the rest of the Ohio contingent. The young fans checked their sticks under the oaks before climbing into the bleachers, and as rapper T. I.’s “Bring ’Em Out” blared from the P.A. system, the No. 10 Cardinal (6-5, 2-1 MPSF) took the field. All were dressed in traditional short skirts except Shane, who prefers the arguably more athletic-looking shorts of the goalie corps.
Shane grew up in the lax stronghold of Baltimore and has been “walking the dog”—a way of controlling the ball—since age 5. “I played on the field for maybe two years, but I was always begging my coach to play goalie,” she recalls. “Maybe I thought the helmet was cool.”
As 2005 goalkeeper of the year in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, Shane had a .560 save percentage, with 204 saves for the season. In the team’s first nine games this year, she allowed just 9.25 goals per game, and played every minute of every game, earning three MPSF player-of-the-week honors.
The job is all about blocking shots and directing the defense, Shane explains. She strings the pocket on her stick for just the right resilience, and juggles balls before game time to warm up her eye-hand coordination. She occasionally will come out of the crease, the lined semicircle just outside the goal cage, to stuff a shot, pick up a groundball or make an interception. But she spends considerable time waving toward a loose yellow sphere, screaming “Ball! Ball!” to help her teammates keep track of its whereabouts.
A co-terminal master’s student in mechanical engineering, Shane has played on the national developmental team for the past two years and will try out for the U.S. “elite team” in May. The World Cup will be played in Prague in the summer of ’09, and she’d like to be one of the two goalies on that squad.
After a rough-and-tumble 60 minutes on the field, Shane’s shins are wrapped in ice packs, and anti-glare black grease paint dribbles down her face. But she’s already looking forward to the next battle.
