Oldham County Girls Lacrosse have begun head coach Jeff Veech’s second year with a 5-5 record.
Veech became the head coach last year with no experience with lacrosse. He learned a lot from watching YouTube videos to help him prepare for being the coach. This year, he feels like he’s learned a lot and has had help from a former South Oldham player last year and assistant coach, Lauren Mullins, this year.
Veech has coached at Oldham County before. He was the head wrestling coach from 1997-2000 and an assistant wrestling coach from 2007-2011. Veech also coached baseball from 1997-1998 and from 2017-2019. He believes the previous coaching stints have allowed him to help gain the confidence of his players.
“The years of coaching the other two sports here helped me come in without knowing anything,” Veech said. “At least gain some of their confidence, because I’ve coached a little bit and had a little bit of success with a few kids and the baseball programs.”
The Lady Colonels entered the year with six seniors on the team, four who have multiple years of experience playing lacrosse. Veech is happy with the senior’s leadership on and off the field.
“We’re all connected through GroupMe, and I see the messages that they send out to the girls and what are we wearing for here and encouraging them for this or whatever,” Veech said. “It’s been a really good group of seniors.”
One of those seniors is Lindsey Zimlich. She wants to lead by being there for her teammates and being a veteran voice for them.
“For me as a senior, I feel like I’ve gained a lot of confidence, because I am one of the oldest on the team,” Zimlich said. “Although I haven’t played for the longest, I feel like I can show a lot of leadership as a senior, especially for new girls starting. I want to be there as someone they can look up to and someone they can come to if they have questions or need help getting better.”
Zimlich has seen the team get better at passing and creating assists during games. For her game, she feels she’s improved being on the offensive side of the field but wants to continue to get better throughout the second half of the season.
“I had a lot of assists last year, and this year, I focused a lot more on goals, especially since our team has been looking for more passes,” Zimlich said. “As we get into the postseason, I would like us all as a team to get better on our plays.”
Senior goalie Ruthie Waller has felt like her personal skills have improved a lot. She dealt with an injury over the offseason, but she has come back with a strong start to the season. She wants there to be a positive atmosphere with the team.
“As a senior, one thing is just a positive mindset and keeping the girls focused and just happy as a team,” Waller said. “We get along really well, and we want to keep that morale up. Another thing is I’m the only player that can see the whole field, so constructive criticism is a big thing with working with everybody and going through what we can do to improve and what I can do, and we all talk about it as a team.”
Waller is excited to see the younger girls on the team grow and mature. She believes they are a strong group and are going to be strong in the future.
“We just have to stay focused with them, make sure that we can do anything we can to help them and keep them in the program,” Waller said. “A lot of encouragement and a lot of skills, it’s a strong group coming up behind us.”
Offensively, the Lady Colonels returned about 90% of their scoring from 2023. Zimlich, sophomores Erin Abbott and Tatum Millet and freshman Dakota Phenix have been the focal points on the offensive side of the field, helping them to five games with more than 10 goals. Phenix also leads the team in assists.
“They’ve been the main players offensively, but one of the things that I preached last year with offense is everybody must be a threat, because if not, it’s a lot easier to defend,” Veech “We’ve had four games this year where we’ve had at least six girls score in a game. One of the things I preach to them is I’m happier about the assist than I am the goal, because the goal doesn’t happen without the assist.”
Zimlich has seen the midfielders, herself, Millet and junior Jocelyn Klingenberg, step up and help the offensive output this year.
“All of us have worked really well together this season, especially because we were also the starters last season,” Zimlich said. “We’ve had this time to grow together and become really good working together and getting passes off. Also, Erin Abbott and Dakota on the post have been really crucial for our scoring. They crease roll a lot, and they work really hard to get open and get the shots off for us.”
With passing being a big focal point of the offense, Zimlich has seen the chemistry grow and improve, especially with the younger players stepping in this year.
“We have to have trust in them that we can pass them the ball, and they’re going to do well,” Zimlich said. “As a whole team, we work super well together off the field. We’re all super good friends, so it helps a lot on the field when you’re passing and playing off them when we’re already friends and super close and have that chemistry built.”
Veech believes it doesn’t matter what age you are, you can step up and lead. He’s seen Klingenberg and Millet grow a lot in that department. Veech believes Millet brings a different type of competitiveness because of her wrestling background, winning three consecutive state championships, including the first-ever sanctioned KHSAA Girls Wrestling State Championship.
“Tatum brings something to the table that we don’t have in a lot of girls, and a lot of that comes from the wrestling thing is that competitive one-on-one, it’s me against you, I want to beat you,” Veech said. “One of the things I would like to see a lot of these girls do is to grow a little bit more into that competitiveness. I tell the girls all the time, ‘I like winning. I hate losing more than I like winning.”’
Waller has seen Zimlich and Klingenberg step up on offense from the midfield while also seeing junior Ellie Kaiser and Abbott step up with passing and leading their teammates to goals.
“All those positions are key on fast breaks when we make a save or we get the ball or I’m trying to get it down the field and score as fast as we can,” Waller said. “Those are players that have really stepped up and filled those roles this year.”
On the defensive side, Waller has seen seniors Ava Gerdes and Bailey Johnson, along with junior Maggie Bryant be key assets.
“We play multiple types of defense, but obviously, some are stronger than the other,” Waller said. “We work really well, adapting to what we need to between other teams we play.”
Waller feels like the team’s chemistry is great and feels like the team is still continuing to grow.
“Obviously, there’s times in games where we get a little tunnel vision, doing our own thing,” Waller said. “That’s something we’ve been working on, but other than that, we all get along really well. We love to hang out with each other, which we do six days a week. That’s really nice. It makes it a lot more enjoyable to come out, practice, be with our friends and work hard and win some games.”
Veech sees Waller as the leader of the defense, because she’s the goalie and can see everything on the field. He’s seen Gerdes be exceptional on defense as well as Johnson, who brings a lot of experience to the table. Another starter that has stepped up on defense is junior Ruby Roberts.
“Almost every single time I can hear [Bryant] talking on the field when people are cutting through and all that,” Veech said. “That’s one thing, especially on defense, communication is key. Ruthie does a lot of that because obviously from where she sits. She’s adjusting offense and calling cutters, but Maggie is one of those other people that I hear quite often calling out things that are going on as well. You look at next year, Ruby and Maggie will be two people we rely on heavily, because I lose Ruthie as the goalie.”
Veech wants the seniors to learn from the adversity they went through, going through three coaches and still willing to be at practice and invested in the game of lacrosse. He wants them to remember the bonds they formed and have fond memories as Lady Colonels.
“I hope they remember sacrificing for your team, because they’ve all had to do that as well, fighting through the adversity, not only through practices but their games,” Veech said. “For their senior year, I hope they remember the bonds that they formed with all the girls. I told them last year and I told them again at the beginning of this year, we had everybody together, I said, ‘Look around, this is the only year that you all will be a team together’…This team really is very close from our two seventh graders all the way up to our six seniors.”
Zimlich wants to be able to look back and believe she led the team the best she could and left the program in a good place.
“I still look up to a lot of the seniors and upperclassmen when I started,” Zimlich said. “I think they really helped me build my confidence as a player and invested in me. I want to be like that for the younger girls on our team too.”
Waller wants to remember the good times she had with the team and playing lacrosse.
“One thing that I just want to look back and remember is how much fun we had,” Waller said. “The girls on the team have become more like a family. I’ve played for six years so most of these girls I played with for six years. I want to reminisce the fun times we had, the hard times we had, but ultimately, we all stuck through it together and kept going.”