Playoff-bound C-M girls lacrosse continues to make strides

Shelby Ford-Snyder had a list of telephone numbers for lacrosse coaches in the area.
As the coach of the Canon-McMillan girls lacrosse club team, which started in 2014, it was her responsibility to put together some semblance of a schedule.
She would craft a 10- to 12-game schedule, make it to practices throughout the week and to tournaments in the fall and spring while trying to earn her doctorate.
“(Lacrosse) wasn’t something I could just give up,” Ford-Snyder said. “I definitely worked on my organizational skills. We’d usually practice from 7:30 to 9 at night, then I would go home and study the rest of the night.”
Ford doesn’t need to pick up the phone to schedule the 10 to 12 games the Big Macs would try to play as a club team now.
As of early this past week, Ford-Snyder is waiting to receive a call revealing where Canon-McMillan will play … in the WPIAL playoffs.
For the first time since gaining entry into the league in 2016, the Big Macs are bound for the postseason. It is a far cry from the one win they had in their first WPIAL season and five victories they finished with last year. Their best season prior to this year was in 2017, when they went 7-10.
“Honestly, there has been improvement everywhere,” Ford-Snyder said. “There isn’t just one person or position. We have just started to play better as a team. Looking back, we are scoring a lot more than we have in the past. A lot of girls have just stepped up. We have a ton of great leadership.”
That has led C-M to doubling its win total from last year. A five-game winning streak in the middle of the Big Macs’ season has them at 10-6 overall with their regular-season finale against Peters Township at 6 p.m. Monday night.
A bulk of C-M’s scoring is coming from junior Camryn Whipple, who has 82 goals this season and 182 for her career. Ashley Irwin has scored 55 goals and Maura O’Donoghue and Sarah Dunn each have 29 goals. Grace Torpey and O’Donoghue have been important in draw controls.
It’s been the aspirations of a program Ford-Snyder envisioned before graduating from Canon-McMillan in 2011.
“I played travel lacrosse for years and had to play on the boys team (at C-M),” she said. “Once it came back to me that they were trying to start a team, I was in. We went to a lot of camps and I hosted a few learn-to-play clinics to get interest. It spread by word of mouth. The numbers have just continued to grow.”
The Big Macs have 34 players listed on their roster and only three seniors. They also have a junior varsity team for the first time.
“Lacrosse wasn’t huge in the area when I went to high school but it has really taken off,” Ford-Snyder said. “Now, being able to play in the WPIAL is such a great opportunity. It’s a whole different level than we were used to.”
A level Canon-McMillan seems to be adjusting to rather well.