By Chris Goldberg
Phillylacrosse,com, Posted 1/14/11
West Chester East senior midfielder Hayley Tomilson has made a verbal commitment to play Division I lacrosse at Mount St. Mary’s College.
Tomilson scored 34 goals last year for the Vikings, helping them advance to the District 1 tournament. She plays club lacrosse for Blitz.
Tomilson intend to study Marketing at Mount St. Mary’s.
“I think that playing lacrosse in college will help my leadership skills and help me become a successful business women one day,” she said. “The decision to go to the Mount was very easy.
“After going on my weekend visit I knew right that the team chemistry they had was what I was really looking for. Also, what really excited me is that it is evident how much the school is building up its lacrosse program.”
Tomilson was recruited by former head coach Lindsey Munday and assistant Hilary Bowen, two products of the Northwestern dynasty and big reasons she chose the school. Although Munday left just recently to take the head coaching job at the University of Southern California, Tomilson was happy with the hiring of former Temple and Penn State assistant B.J. Lucey as the new head coach of the Mount. Bowen remains as the top assistant.
Tomilson believes West Chester East will challenge in the Ches-Mont League, after going 9-10 last season. The team returns two other Division I recruits, midfielder Steph Lobb (junior, North Carolina) and senior midfielder Julia Falcone (St. Joseph’s).
East will be led by first-year coach Krista Somits, formerly the coach at Villa Maria Academy.
“My expectations are very high for this season,” Tomilson said. “We just got two awesome coaches and I know they will be able to help us achieve a lot this year.
“Hopefully we will be able to take the things our old coaches gave taught us and learn even more from our new coaches. Also we have a very experienced team with mostly upperclassmen.
“I really hope that we can all come together and build up our team chemistry and bring home a title. First we want to focus on just getting to playoffs and from there see what happens. If everyone comes together I know East can do great things.”
