Catherine Loder makes history for Trinity Hall girls lacrosse By John Sorce

TINTON FALLS – Trinity Hall girls lacrosse senior Catherine Loder became the first player in program history to score 100 career goals. She scored the goal on May 2 in a home game against Shore Regional.

“Catherine came in knowing how to play lacrosse and us being a newer program and a smaller school, we didn’t have many girls that knew,” said Trinity Hall head coach Dana Lenneper. “She took on a leadership role in her freshman year and she was never afraid to go to the goal and she is always a confident player on the field.”

With no varsity team for the first year and a half, Loder accomplished the feat in two and a half years. She scored 18 goals as a sophomore, 48 as a junior and currently has 40 as a senior.

The school opened in the fall of 2013, and the athletic programs were not accepted into the Shore Conference until the fall of 2015. Because of this, the team was not able to play a full varsity schedule that spring, Loder’s sophomore season.

The fact that she essentially did this in two years and a handful of games at the varsity level makes it that much more impressive.

Loder is a multi-sport athlete, also participating in basketball for all four years and cross-country for two. With the lacrosse program still in its infancy, she and her teammates in other sports were able to recruit other girls to give lacrosse a chance. Some of them never played before, but trying something new is always a good experience.

“They’re just an awesome group of girls. Even in the first year when there were 10 or 12 of them who didn’t know how to play and we were just doing it to get a program started, they’re just fun to be around,” Lenneper said. “It was tough in the beginning knowing I had to teach most of them how to play and this year I’m getting freshman on varsity teaching them how to play the sport, just because we need the numbers, but it’s just so easy to be around and it’s been a pleasure for me.”

Loder is an exceptional student, who will be attending the University of Michigan in the fall and majoring in Engineering.

“She has done 255 hours of community service in the four years she’s been at Trinity, while maintaining a GPA that is over 3.9 taking all honors and AP classes.” Lenneper said. “She doesn’t really want credit for all that, but that’s really impressive to me. She’s just an awesome kid and she’s going to be missed by me for sure, but definitely the school and the team. Anywhere she goes, she leaves an impact.”

The program is still relatively new at Trinity Hall, but Loder has certainly left her mark on numerous sports.

“The biggest thing I see with the seniors is their positivity,” Lenneper said. “I know that sounds corny, but being a new program and playing in a tough conference, they were just so positive every day no matter if we won or lost. They went into every game really motivated and thinking we were going to win, and I think that energy definitely rubbed off on the underclassmen.”

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