Mei Hanaki, a 5 feet 4 inches tall senior midfielder and captain on the UCHS girls lacrosse team, describes the experience of graduating this month \u2014 after having attended in-person for only two of her class\u2019 four years because of COVID \u2014 and the Centurions\u2019 going to the CIF quarterfinals after losing the entire coaching staff two years ago as \u201csurreal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI love how cutting-edge the field of bio-engineering is,\u201d says the engaging, articulate Hanaki, who will pursue her studies at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland in the fall. \u201cThere are a lot of opportunities in health and medicine, also genetics. And I love creating things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanaki and her three fellow senior captains, defender Alyssa Parinas, attack player Joelle Fineman, and defender Bri Gonzalez, have helped new coach Lizzy Desenfants create a whole lot of new stuff in the way of the girls lacrosse program. The Cents went undefeated in the Eastern League; they unexpectedly downed Mt. Carmel in a non-league match; they did the same against Mission Hills, which had a \u201clot of pushing and shoving,\u201d in Fineman\u2019s description.<\/p>\n
Gonzalez: \u201cWe had a few moments when we underestimated how good we were, as far as believing how far we could go.\u201d Desenfants, assistant Cory Cardwell, and the rest of the coaching staff made them believe, to the point UC reached the Div. II quarterfinals before falling.<\/p>\n
Parinas, who leads the defense, is heading to Grand Canyon University in the fall to play lacrosse and take nursing: \u201cEveryone on this team is so eager to learn and grow and push us together. We have a lot of younger players. They truly are growing on the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alyssa, a 5 feet 4 inches tall energy cell herself, says, \u201cOur coaches get our name out there\u201d (by scheduling tough non-league opponents). \u201cChallenging ourselves has definitely helped us grow this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gonzalez plans to enter USD in the fall to study chemistry on a full ride. \u201cEver since I was little, I was putting Mentos in the Coke bottle\u201d (to watch the reaction blow up). \u201cWith chemistry, I\u2019m going to go into forensics, also data and DNA.\u201d I<\/p>\n
n response to a question, she said, \u201cI think it will make the world better because I\u2019ll be doing something to make it better; for example (in forensics) helping a family member to understand when someone has done wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
On defense, Bri emphasized the importance of defending the \u201cX\u201d \u2014 directly next to the goal on each side \u2014 and the \u201ccrease\u201d \u2014 the route right around the back of the goal where the opponent tries to set up. \u201cNo one can step in,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Cardwell, the assistant, affirms, \u201cIt was a good first season, for sure,\u201d with the brand new coaching staff. \u201cThe girls played with passion. Everyone had that drive this year. If we face Santa Fe Christian, who defeated us in the quarterfinals and went on to win the division title, again, we\u2019ll beat them.\u201d<\/p>\n
PHOTO BY ED PIPER<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mei Hanaki, a 5 feet 4 inches tall senior midfielder and captain on the UCHS girls lacrosse team, describes the experience of graduating this month \u2014 after having attended in-person for only two of her class\u2019 four years because of COVID \u2014 and the Centurions\u2019 going to the CIF quarterfinals after losing the entire coaching […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1484,"featured_media":312556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Mei Hanaki, a 5 feet 4 inches tall senior midfielder and captain on the UCHS girls lacrosse team, describes the experience of graduating this month \u2014 after having attended in-person for only two of her class\u2019 four years because of COVID \u2014 and the Centurions\u2019 going to the CIF quarterfinals after losing the entire coaching staff two years ago as \u201csurreal.\u201d","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"3","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"1","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"1","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11553],"tags":[13326,13327],"class_list":["post-312555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-sports","tag-girls-lacrosse","tag-uchs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1484"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}