First year head coach Krista Grabher certainly has the pedigree, experience and background needed to take the St. Ed’s varsity girls lacrosse team to new heights.
“I played Division 1 lacrosse for the University of Florida and I’m from Vero Beach,” Grabher said. “I went to St. Edward’s from third through eighth grade so I’m familiar with the school. I saw that a teaching position was open and that the school needed a lacrosse coach.”
Grabher arrived last year and fit right in as a middle school English teacher and assistant coach to Don Balch with the girls lacrosse team. She was promoted to the top job this year.
After her time as a student at St. Ed’s, Grabher transferred to Vero Beach High where she was an integral part of four state championship teams under Shannon Dean from 2007 through 2010. She is among a growing cluster of players from those decade-long state dynasty teams that has branched out to fill coaching positions after college.
The Pirates defeated Pine School 10-7 at home last week behind the steady hand of leading scorer Meg Bespolka. The senior midfielder put two more into the net, giving her a total of 12 goals through four games. The win evened St. Ed’s record at 2-2 and set the stage for two road games this week leading up to spring break.
The team will play an independent schedule in the 2016 season, and Grabher has already noticed quite a bit of progress over last year when the team had no seniors.
“We have huge numbers now compared to last year, and it’s great to see that a lot of girls are really getting into the sport,” Grabher said. “We have a lot of young girls coming up and that hopefully shows that we will have a good future ahead of us.
“The games we have lost have been really close (14-9 to South Fork and 11-10 to Jupiter), so we are definitely showing signs of improvement. And hopefully as we progress through the season those close games will be wins.”
The three seniors on the roster this year have all been designated team captains. Bespolka, Grace Kahle and Autumn Meadows were thrust into leadership roles as juniors. Even more responsibility will be on their shoulders this year guiding four juniors, eight sophomores and eight freshmen.
“I see really good things for this team,” Bespolka said. “It is totally a team effort for every goal I’ve had a part in. We’ve had so much improvement from last year. We are a really young team without much experience, but we are motivated and we all work very hard in all of our games. We have really great fight.
“The three seniors were the oldest girls on the team last year and this year we have been able to improve upon our leadership skills. We have great team building exercises to keep everyone close on and off the field. We rely on our experience to try to help everyone else out.”
Grabher has six players in a midfield rotation to keep everyone fresh, but Bespolka takes the lead role on offense and Kahle anchors the defense in front of goalie Kendra Mathes.
“As a senior it’s important for me to be a role model for the girls,” Kahle said. “I’m really close with all of them. I just want to see everyone succeed, individually and as a team. If everyone strives to reach their own personal goals, that in turn will help us reach our team goals. Obviously a big part of that is winning, but we should also enjoy ourselves and make the most of every single practice and every single game.
“I want to be involved as much as I can. You definitely think about it when you’re a senior since it is coming to an end. So I’m going to take it all in as much as I can.”
That type of mature leadership would clearly be beneficial for any new head coach, although in this particular case St. Ed’s got someone who was thoroughly prepared for the task.
“I coached club lacrosse and younger kids even through college,” Grabher said. “So it wasn’t a very hard transition into this position. The actual coaching part for me is easy. The tricky part is putting everything else together like scheduling, team bonding, and making sure the girls have food at the right time.
“I was on four state championship teams and that prepared me for what I was going to be doing at the University of Florida. (Shannon Dean’s)coaching taught me how to be prepared physically and mentally for all of the experiences and knowledge that I can now pass on to these girls.
“I believe we have made some really big improvements here in one year. I’m going to say that we are not going to slow down in any way.”
