Northampton head coach Kyla Power remembers the moment well.
It was a conditioning day for the Northampton High School girls lacrosse team, and the squad was running sprint drills. To add some incentive, Power told the group that the winner of the drills would get their favorite candy bar.
Sophomore Sofia Ciaglo won the first drill. Then the second one. Then the third. Power moved her further back then the rest of the team to even the playing field. But it didn’t matter how far behind Ciaglo started — she won every sprint drill that Power threw at the Blue Devils.
“At the end, I was like, ‘All right Sofia, what candy bar do you want?’ And she looked at me and she was like, ‘I don’t really like candy. I just like to win,’” Power said.
That, in a nutshell, is why Sofia Ciaglo was selected as the 2022 Daily Hampshire Gazette’s Girls Lacrosse Player of the Year. The sophomore led the Blue Devils in scoring with a remarkable 89 tallies and notched 30 assists. She was a critical part of the team’s success as the squad reached the Western Mass. Class B final, where it lost an overtime heartbreaker to East Longmeadow, and then qualified for the MIAA Division 2 state tournament, earning a bye into the round of 32 where it fell in a close 16-12 match to Minnechaug. The team finished with a .500 record, going 11-11 in large part thanks to Ciaglo’s tenacity.
“The thing about Sofia — she has no off switch. Even in practice, she plays as hard as she does in games,” Power said. “She does not know how to go 50 percent, it’s just not how she works.”
Ciaglo is a three-sport athlete, playing soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter and lacrosse in the spring. She excels at all three, and enjoys playing each of them, but her skills shine perhaps the brightest on the lacrosse field. She didn’t grow up playing the sport, first picking up a lacrosse stick in the fourth grade and playing formally for the first time in seventh. Despite that, she’s picked up the game quickly, moving quickly from learning the game to improving specific skills.
“I was trying to get a lot more comfortable with my weak hand and definitely just dodging. Even right now, I think my finishing and my dodging could still improve a lot better,” Ciaglo said. “I was also starting to focus on defense towards the end of the season, and that’s something I feel like improved a lot, because my club coaches, they definitely speak highly about my defense now.”
Ciaglo can do it all — her scoring jumps out the most, but Power pointed out that her assist percentage improved steadily as the season went on. Her coach also praised her team-first mentality, running ability and high lacrosse IQ as major parts of Ciaglo’s game. But one of her biggest strengths, Power says, is her strong technique.
“Ultimately I think Sofia’s biggest strength is how technique-oriented she is. She is a kid who really wants to understand when she’s supposed to do something, how she’s supposed to do it,” Power said. “(She) very much is actively really thinking while she plays and in some ways that can make it difficult, right? Sometimes when you overthink things you end up playing more in your head than on the field… But it’s also such a huge strength, because what it means is that she picks up things really quickly.”
Learning and adding new skills to her tool kit is something that Ciaglo is always working on. Still an underclassman this past season, she’s been working on finding her role in the team, whether that’s stepping up when her team needs it or working with her teammates to win a game.
“I just wanted to help the team out and win as many possible games,” Ciaglo said. “My role on this team — I feel like lot of my goals came in transition, and they were at moments where we needed a goal. I feel like I can start scoring momentum and bring energy to the team.”
Whether it’s scoring, defense or distributing, Ciaglo can do it all. As a midfielder, she has to. With two more years left at the high school level, Ciaglo has nowhere to go but up from here.
FIRST TEAM ALL-STARS
Meghan Carey, junior, South Hadley
Chloe Denhart, junior, Northampton
Skylar Duda, senior, Hampshire
Ella Laliberte, junior, Granby
Madysen LePage, sophomore, Belchertown
Olivia Marion, senior, South Hadley
Sam Moran, junior, Hampshire
Gabi Moroney, senior, South Hadley
Samantha Pacunas, junior, Belchertown
Talia Sadiq, sophomore, Amherst
Esme Siegel, Amherst
Gabby Walz, senior, Granby
SECOND TEAM
Cedar Conrad, sophomore, Amherst
Summer Duda, sophomore, Hampshire
Izzy Epstein, junior, Northampton
Abby Hennessy, sophomore, Hampshire
Jordan Hutchins, junior, Northampton
Emily Ireland, senior, Amherst
Ari Klekotka, senior, Granby
Kacie Levrault, junior, South Hadley
Paige Magner, sophomore, Belchertown
Hailey Raffa, junior, Hampshire
Mary Thibault, freshman, Hampshire
Margaret Watkins, freshman, South Hadley
HONORABLE MENTION
Emma Archambault, senior, Hampshire
Jordyn Balint, freshman, South Hadley
Silvia Bastek, junior, Hampshire
Ryleigh Fennessy, freshman, Hampshire
Kayla Klekotka, senior, Granby
Adriana Lyra-Brazao, junior, Amherst
Caitlin MacDougall, senior, Amherst
Anna Puttick, sophomore, Hampshire
Michelle Zaluga, junior, Belchertown
