Legacy, according to Jayme Cerasuolo ’26, has a concrete definition for the girls varsity lacrosse program.
“It’s playing for the name on the front of your shirt instead of what’s on the back,” Cerasuolo said. “It’s holding a standard. It’s playing to the final whistle. It’s sportsmanship, the way you carry yourself whether you’re winning or losing.”
It’s a word—legacy—that comes up a lot when talking with Cerasuolo, her teammate and classmate Kat Mayer, and Charlie Lonergan, who has made it a recurring theme in his 10 years as coach, especially this season, which marks the 50th anniversary of the Williston Lacrosse program. Mayer thinks back on Camille Armaganian, Emily Hammann, and Anna Sawyer, all 2024 alums who mentored her when she was a newly arriving, “nervous” sophomore at Williston and they were outgoing captains.
Lonergan’s hindsight, as someone involved in the sport for roughly 40 years, is more widescreen.
“Being on a team is super important to all of us in the moment, and it’s so easy to lose sight of the fact that 10, 20, 30, years ago it was also super important to those people in the moment,” said Lonergan, who prior to his Williston athletics role coached for two years under hall of fame lacrosse coach Keith Bugbee at Springfield College while earning his master’s degree in sport management. “I really wanted to do justice to everything the [Williston] program had accomplished.” Lonergan ensures his players know, in instilling these qualities in them both on and off the field, that lacrosse was and continues to be “important for a lot of people that came before them.”
Lonergan learned these lessons, on grit and sportsmanship, from Bugbee, who retired last year after 42 years leading the Springfield College squad. He remembers a mantra of Bugbee’s that’s guided his coaching career ever since.
“He always used to say to the players, ‘You leave and I stay.’ It just keeps going,” he said. “I think it’s really important for the kids to know that there’s a long successful history that matters to a lot of people, and that they’re now a part of it.”
That legacy, Lonergan added, includes a style of play that’s “competitive and gritty,” and that he pushes his athletes to embody. It also includes “focusing less on the scoreboard and more on the intangibles,” he said. “That’s part of the legacy. That’s what it looked like here when uniforms were different and it was a grass field,” he added.
To build the sportsmanship that will continue to push the program forward, Lonergan has his players turn in written goals before every game. These little things go a long way and will ultimately be what his players remember more than the final score or any particular play.
“Yes, winning has been a big part of the history, but what we’ve done that’s allowed us to win has been more important,” he said.
Legacy has been on both Cerasuolo and Mayer’s minds; both are graduating and will continue their lacrosse careers—Cerasuolo at East Carolina University and Mayer at Radford University, both D-1 programs—and both suffered injuries that made them alter how they see the sport they love and, in turn, how they see themselves.
Earlier this season, Cerasuolo tore her meniscus; she had surgery May 5. Last season, Mayer, who plays low right attack, suffered a season-ending ACL and medial and lateral meniscus tear in an April 23 game at Deerfield. She had surgery on May 14, and then after nearly a year of rehabilitation, she returned to the sport March 3 of this year. In the interim, she “learned who I was without a sport.”
Mayer said that was a crucial lesson.
“Lacrosse has gotten me everywhere,” she said. “It got me to Williston and it’s getting me to college.” Once she was hurt, she realized “life is going to come and you are going to have a get a job.”
Spending last summer at home in Massena, New York, with her parents and grandparents, unable to play, Kat said she enjoyed getting to see her family one last time before she heads to college. She said the time off made her realize “sports aren’t the end-all. It may be for some people, but it’s not for me.”
While her lacrosse career may come to a close after college, Mayer isn’t giving up on the sport that’s given her so much. She plans to study sport management at college, just like her coach.
Lonergan said the Wildcats have had some big wins, include a March 28 Middlesex victory and a 16-6 win over Suffield Academy in the team’s final game on May 13. Despite Cerasuolo’s injury and junior Clara D’Amuri missing four games because of a concussion, other players have taken on leadership roles.
“It’s been really cool to see a bunch of kids step forward, whether those are game day roles or just in practice,” said Lonergan, noting the impressive work put in by seniors Scarlette Graybill, Yaz McKenzie, and Brenna Ziter, and juniors Libby Ballinger, Riley Stocker, Addison Perich, and Kayle Mazuroski.
Again, the idea of legacy is part of the equation.
“It’s been cool to see the relationships develop, to see the veteran players bring along some of the new kids.”
Though Lonergan makes it clear that this year’s team is upholding a half-century of history on the field, it’s also clear these specific players will live in his memory even when they’re not on the team anymore.
To that end, he pulled up his player notes from Oct. 16, 2022, the day he first saw Mayer play at a fall ball tournament in Devons, Mass. He noted the rating system he uses when scouting, in which, if he writes their name down, “they’re good enough to be with us and have a role on the team,” and if he puts a star next to their name, it’s clear they’ll be an impact player.
“I had a star next to her name,” he said.