Southampton Will Field Its First Varsity Girls Lacrosse Team Since 2008 This Spring

For the first time since 2008, Southampton is fielding a varsity girls lacrosse team.

Chelsea Reimer, who coached the program’s junior varsity program last season, will continue to lead the team at the varsity rank. A 2007 graduate of West Islip High School, Reimer continued her lacrosse career at SUNY Oneonta and has been coaching since she graduated from the school in 2011. Reimer led a big push for a varsity program starting this season rather than wait another year or two.

“We have girls who really want it,” Reimer said. “Girls who are very skilled and deserve to be up on varsity. We are really trying to build the program in Southampton and you really can’t do that without a varsity program. It’s hard to get the girls really believing in something and buy in without having that varsity team, so I really pushed for them to go varsity this year.”

Southampton will have 27 girls on its varsity team this season, with no JV, but Reimer is hoping that will change by next season. Largely because of COVID and the unsure nature of whether there was going to be a season last year, the Mariners only had 16 players on their JV squad, leaving Reimer with little to no substitutions for games. Reimer is working to start a youth girls lacrosse program in the area and is hoping that will help increase numbers in the near future.

“I am still building a program,” she said. “I have girls who are amazing, and that’s why I went varsity, but we also have girls who have never really played before. I am a special education teacher here in Southampton, and so I’m used to differentiating instruction in the classroom and I’ll have to use those skills on the field as well. I’ll have to teach some girls how to play lacrosse while also building with the other girls. It’s a lot of moving parts in practice.”

Despite being its first varsity season in 14 years, Southampton will have four seniors — Victoria Bennett, Michelle Morastitla Ramos, Isabelle Palumbo and Autumn Wilson. Palumbo, along with junior Amy Jimenez Maza, will lead the defense, and Bennett will get time on both attack and defense.

Reimer is really high on her class of juniors, which includes a trio of strong midfielders in Juliette Archer, Hailey Cameron and Kiley Maloney. Paige Garvin will lead what’s expected to be a strong attack along with Celia Ginsburg and Cameron Willey. Sa’naya Morris is a sophomore midfielder who Reimer is excited to see play as well.

Southampton will play in Division II this season and is classified as a “D” school. It will play a good mix of teams this season, but if the Mariners want to try to make the postseason this season they will be compared to fellow “D” schools Babylon, Center Moriches, Mattituck/Southold/Greenport and Port Jefferson.

The Mariners open their season this Saturday, March 26, at Hauppauge at 10 a.m. and will be home against Islip this Monday, March 28, at 4:30 p.m.