Playing with Purpose
May 18, 2012
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Lauren Hooker gets up for every lacrosse game. She and her teammates will dress the same for school, send each other pump-up messages throughout the day and carry that momentum into the locker room and onto the field.
But she admits she plays her best against her toughest opponents.
“It’s playing to their level. Playing someone good forces you to step up and play the best,” Hooker said. “It brings the best out of you. I don’t enjoy playing some of the really easy teams as much.”
The East Grand Rapids senior loves a challenge. And she’s helping the Pioneers blaze through a few of them in this, her final high school season, before joining the Marquette University program this fall.
East Grand Rapids has started this season 20-0. The Pioneers are ranked No. 1 both in Division 2 and regardless of division based on the computer rankings supplied by LaxPower.com. And they are doing so with only two seniors – although Hooker, who received a Second Half High 5 this week, gives the team a star at the top that few teams in Michigan can counter.
Playing attack, she’s scored 101 goals -- already third-most for a single season in the MHSAA record book, and more than 25 percent of her team's total. Add in her 33 assists, and her 134 total points are fifth in MHSAA history for one season.
And indeed, she’s been at her best against the best. Hooker had three goals and three assists in an 11-9 win last week over No. 2-ranked Grand Rapids Catholic Central. She scored seven goals in each of two games against Division 1 No. 5 Rockford, and had nine goals in Monday’s 17-8 win over Division 1 No. 2 Hartland.
“She’s what I’d call sneaky quick. Basically, she doesn’t take a big wind-up in her shot; it looks like she’s cradling, looking to pass. And then she just puts it past the goalie,” Pioneers coach Rich Axtell said. “Some players take a different approach, but she’s deceptive. She’s got really good stick control. When she’s in close, she can make you feel pretty slow by comparison.”
Hooker has been on a quest after being part of teams that have lost either in the first or second rounds of Regionals her first three seasons. The last two, the Pioneers ended with defeats by the eventual MHSAA champions. A year ago, they lost 14-13 in double overtime to eventual Finals winner Grand Rapids Catholic Central.
But there’s no question in Axtell's mind that Hooker has brought her game up a level this spring. That effort began in September, when she hit the weight room for training that continued all winter.
Hooker said she started those sessions in part to bring the team together early, especially with so many young players joining the program. Axtell said he thinks part of that drive also came with getting the scholarship to Marquette, which will begin as an NCAA program in 2013.
“She’s really playing with a lot more purpose,” Axtell said.
Hooker first was a golfer, before quitting that sport until taking it up again as a freshman in high school. In the fall, she was the low scorer on the Pioneers golf team that finished eighth at the Division 3 Final, and she missed the individual top 10 by only two strokes.
But lacrosse has been her number one since she first picked up the game during third and fourth grades. “A huge tomboy,” Hooker learned the game from a boy who lived in her neighborhood. After attending a couple of boys clinics, her mom found a girls team for her in the Forest Hills area.
Her mom and group of others then organized an East Grand Rapids youth team that Hooker joined for a few years before jumping up to the Pioneers’ varsity lineup as a freshman.
This offseason she accepted the challenge to set a championship standard. She hopes to leave high school next month having helped the Pioneers win their first MHSAA lacrosse title – with the groundwork for more to come as she moves on.
“I have a lot of hope for the program to continue to do so well,” Hooker said. “Hopefully when I’m gone, people will carry on doing so well.”
Click to read more about Hooker's future plans and lacrosse influences.
PHOTOS: East Grand Rapids' Lauren Hooker (14) has scored 101 goals this season (Photos courtesy of East Grand Rapids lacrosse.).
Country Day Makes Unforgettable Score Go Its Way in Division 2 Rematch
By
Drew Ellis
Special for MHSAA.com
June 7, 2025
ANN ARBOR – The score 10-9 carried a lot of frustration for the Detroit Country Day girls lacrosse team over the last year.
Now, it will be a score the Yellowjackets never want to forget.
After coming up on the short end of a 10-9 loss to Grand Rapids Catholic Central in the 2024 Division 2 championship game, Country Day managed to flip the script Saturday at the University of Michigan with a 10-9 overtime victory in a rematch with the Cougars.
“I feel like that score was burned into all my players’ minds after last year,” Detroit Country Day coach Liz Nussbaum said. “We started preparing the next day after (the 2024 Final). Last year we came in with two losses (against GRCC), this year we came in with two wins, so I think that gave us more of a confidence boost. … I had so much confidence that we were going to get it done.”
Saturday’s win clinched Detroit Country Day’s second Finals championship and also second over the last three seasons.
The two teams played to a 9-9 tie in regulation. The game-winning goal came a minute into overtime when Yellowjackets freshman Charlotte Cook attacked the goal and found the net to give Country Day the 10-9 advantage. The goal was the second of the day for the freshman, who received a premonition from a teammate heading into overtime.
“I just saw an opening,” Cook said of going for the game-winning goal. “I had been trying to go all day, but had been laying off. I didn’t want to push it too much. My teammate and one of my best friends, Adriana Zuk, told me I was going to get the winning goal. I saw an opportunity and I wanted to make her prediction come true, so I went for it.”
With the lead, Detroit Country Day (17-3) then had to rely on junior goalie Campbell Lindner. Fighting off exhaustion between regulation and the extra sessions, Lindner had to dig deep mentally to come through with a pair of saves to keep her team in the lead.
“Don’t get in your head, don’t lose your mind,” Linder explained of what she was telling herself going into overtime. “Stay calm, shoulders back. Don’t do things you usually wouldn’t do. Just play your game, be scrappy, and do what you know how to do, what you were trained to do.”
Nussbaum said that kind of mentality has defined her goalie all season.
“It took her a minute to get into her head space, but once she did, she was unstoppable,” Nussbaum said of Lindner, who finished the game with 10 saves.
Country Day had a pair of regular-season wins over the Cougars (16-6), but it was Grand Rapids Catholic Central that had control of the scoreboard most of the first half Saturday.
The Cougars jumped out to a 5-2 lead after one quarter and extended it to 6-2 early in the second as junior Lily Engstrom netted her third goal.
“We just talked about concentrating on the things we had done all year, and I felt like we did that,” GRCC coach Joe Curcuru said. “I think we had a pretty good game plan, and we were able to get those early loose opportunities.”
Country Day began to fight back down four, scoring four of the next five goals to make it a 7-6 deficit at halftime.
In the third, the Yellowjackets locked up the Cougars’ offense, keeping them off the scoreboard.
“Credit to (Country Day’s) defense, they started to tighten up and made things tougher for us, which is what a great team does,” Curcuru said.
A goal from DCD senior Georgia Pavlou tied the game at 7-7 entering the fourth.
“We have a lot more flexibility this year, a lot more options with what we can do. Mary and Georgia (Pavlou) are amazing leaders. I am going to miss them so much because they are the rock of the team,” Nussbaum said. “I had not a thought in my mind that they wouldn’t figure things out. They play a really tough zone for us and were able to settle things down.”
The Yellowjackets got their first lead in the fourth quarter when sophomore Jackie Calso put the ball between the GRCC goalie’s legs for her third goal of the game, making it 8-7.
The Cougars answered, with Engstrom scoring consecutive goals to give her six on the game and put GRCC up 9-8 with five minutes remaining in regulation.
Just less than four minutes later, Mary Pavlou would tie things up on a free protection shot. She would also create a turnover as GRCC attempted to get a game-winning shot attempt before overtime.
“We knew we were going to be in a close game,” Nussbaum said. “We were mentally ready for those tough moments, and it showed in the end.”
Calso’s three goals led Country Day, while Georgia Pavlou and Cook each scored twice. Pavlou added two assists.
Engstrom’s six goals led the Cougars, while Claire Sullivan had two assists. Goalie Samaya Dean recorded 11 saves.
PHOTOS (Top) Detroit Country Day and Grand Rapids Catholic Central players face off during the Division 2 Final. (Middle) The Yellowjackets secure possession of a loose ball.