CR NORTH:All in the family at the Rock

Bridget, Casey and Molly Doyle (from left) are three of
the five sisters on the Council Rock North girls lacrosse team.

By Steve Sherman
Sports Editor

Council Rock North has five freshmen playing girls lacrosse this season.
Four of them are sisters, three of whom are from the Doyle family along with freshman Hannah Plappert, who is the younger sister to junior co-captain Elly Plappert.
Elly’s senior co-captain is Casey Doyle, whose twin sisters--Molly and Bridget--are two of five freshmen on this year’s Lady Indians lacrosse team.
Though they’re only freshmen, everyone in the group of 9th-graders have gotten a lot of experience playing lacrosse under the tutelage of Dave Hurwitz in the Council Rock youth lacrosse program.
“They really are THAT good; they’re all stepping up incredibly,” stated Casey Doyle referring to the freshmen. “They play like veterans and each and every one of them has earned their spots.”
With five sisters from two families, you might say that Rock lacrosse is a bit of a family affair this year. Andthat’s a good thing. With last year’s graduation, North lost a bunch of seniors including Bernadette Maher, who provided a lot of the team’s scoring before moving on to American University.
With the Rock currently starting three sophomores and the five freshmen, this year has been a bit of a rebuilding year for co-coaches Pat Toner and Carolyn Kacergis. But the coaches say co-captains Doyle and Plappert have done a nice job bringing everyone in to the Rock family fold.
“It’s hard to get everyone to jell when you have so many new people but our captains are tremendous,” stated Toner. “These two girls have done a great job of bringing everyone together.
Freshman Molly Doyle, who plays in the midfield, says she’s enjoyed playing varsity with older sister Casey.
“I’ve been looking up to her my entire lacrosse career,” stated Molly. “So playing together with [Casey] this year has been a good experience.
Molly says she was surprised to make varsity.
“As a freshman, it’s a really big honor to actually make varsity,” she said, “so I guess I was a little surprised.”
Twin sister Bridget agrees that the experience has been good for the sisters. The thing is she didn’t expect it.
“It’s been a lot of fun but really, I didn’t expect that,” stated Bridget. “I expected it to be really nerve-wracking but it’s been a lot of fun.”
The down side of having your sisters on the team is that when you make a mistake, siblings aren’t as forgiving as say the rest of your teammates. Still, Bridget says she’s OK with that.
“I get ‘the look’ when I mess up but that’s fine,” said Bridget. “I know I’m going to get it so it’s fine because I’m expecting it.”
The upside to having sisters who play for the same team is that the players can discuss what happened in the game when they get home. Of course, there’s some days when the Doyle sisters instinctively know the game doesn’t get discussed at the dinner table.
“We know how we’re all feeling after a game. If we don’t want to talk about it, we know that so we won’t bring it up,” explained Bridget Doyle. “We know what happened in the game so…”
Enough said.
The sisters routinely contribute offensively to the Lady Indians’ offense, especially Hannah, who scored five times while adding two assists to the Rock’s 14-4 win over SOL National Conference rival Pennsbury. Casey and Elly also scored once in that game.
“This was a really good all around game,” stated Elly. “Our offense was good; our defense was good. Our midfield--we’ve been working on that because it hasn’t been that good. But it was way better today; we made really good connections passing in today’s game”
According to Elly, the squad has enjoyed its evolution from a unit filled with a lot of raw talent to a varsity squad that operates more efficiently.
“We’ve hit some little bumps in the road but we’re doing pretty well,” stated Elly. “We’re learning from our mistakes and the freshmen are working hard, even though they’re a little inexperienced.”
“We don’t have a lot of experience on the team but the [new players] are all working so hard; everybody is,” stated Casey Doyle. “This season really has been a team effort.”
Like the Doyles and the Plapperts, it’s all in the family at Council Rock North.