Leaving it on the field with Coach Pandolf
Head women’s lacrosse coach Jessica Pandolf is the first in the program’s history and in her second season with the Knights. Pandolf joined the program in 2021 and hit the ground running recruiting student-athletes and preparing for the team’s inaugural season in 2023. Take a minute to read what it is like to be the inaugural head coach of a DI program.
Holbrook, NY (Long Island)
I realized I wanted to coach my freshman year of college. Growing up I didn’t have many female coaches. Once I got to college, I realized how important and amazing it was to have female mentors in my life.
Practices in-season are typically structured the same each week but could have a different focus. We typically have games on Wednesday and Saturday or just Saturday depending on the week. We start each practice off usually with some partner pass and small-sided stick work. Then we get into small-sided playing, then into bigger concepts. It always depends on our team needs each week. We do add film and scout sessions into practices as well.
We expect them to uphold our standards by making sure academically they are in good standing, they bring consistent energy to practice every day and being open to different opinions along with communicating openly with coaches and teammates.
We are only in our second year as a program, so our bench energy is different probably since we utilize a majority of our players. But overall, it’s growing game by game with the energy it’s bringing.
That’s a great question! We have a good amount of New York girls on our team so playing Syracuse University in the JMA Wireless Dome would be a cool experience or even playing one of the National teams.