Field hockey: Former Lakeland star Witmer comes home to coach against her mentor

SHRUB OAK — One of the first things the kids from Conard High probably saw after pulling into the Lakeland parking lot Monday morning was a sports canopy tent that resembles no other.

Go to scrimmage a team from out of your area and you may not know much about it.

Drive into a parking lot and see a canopy that lists the 13 years that team won a state title — including nine straight — and you suddenly know a lot about your opponent.

Of course, Sara Witmer, the West Hartford, Connecticut team's coach, already had more than a passing knowledge of the team her squad would face.

As Sara Gonzalez, Witmer played for the Lakeland High varsity for four years before playing for Division I Albany for one, then spending the next three on the field for D-I Hofstra.

Witmer, whose older sister, Jen, and younger sister, Melissa (Yale's current head coach and a former two-time U.S. Olympian) also played for Lakeland, was on the Hornets from 1997 through 2000.

Those years fall in between the Hornets' first three state championships and their undefeated run and then, two years later, another state title.

"I set the stage for all those (consecutive) championships," Witmer said with a laugh, while balancing on a crutch after surgery for her third ACL tear (this one complicated by her meniscus being torn from the bone).

This was her first ACL injury from playing field hockey.

But this wasn't her first time facing her mentor, Sharon Sarsen, who's starting her 41st season at Lakeland.

In a sense, Witmer pointed out, she had a role in Lakeland's state championship success long after she stopped playing high school field hockey.

Witmer, who started coaching at Conard after a move to Connecticut with her husband and after the birth and early care of their twins (now age 6), coached for a decade at Harrison High School.

"We played (Lakeland) in the playoffs and, in the first or second round, were knocked out like every year during that nine-year run. So, we helped them prepare," Witmer joked.

Preparation was what Monday's scrimmage was about.

And despite Lakeland returning only two seniors, having graduated its three 2021 all-state players and having, according to Sarsen, "a lot of space to grow," Witmer figured Lakeland would still be Lakeland and her team would benefit benefit from playing it.

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Her coaching style reflects a lot of what she picked up playing four years at Lakeland for Sarsen, as well as for her in the Empire State Games, where their Hudson Valley squad earned a gold medal.

Asked what she'd learned from Sarsen who's good friends with Witmen's entire family and who gave a reading at her wedding, Witmer, who has sent her young twins to Sarsen's field hockey camp, said, "I'd say everything."

But, in citing specifics, the former Con Ed academic/athletic/service award winner explained, "It's the way she speaks to players. She sets high expectations and challenges players. But she lets players know she cares about them. Players know she has their best interest at heart and they're willing to accept criticism. It's being tough and being caring."

Witmer, who first tore an ACL in high school soccer, then post-college in soccer again, also noted she has incorporated some of the fun things Lakeland did during practice when she was on the team into her own practices, including competition day, in which players are broken into teams for drill games and the game of five-ball in which two teams each get five balls to try to bring up the field (all at once, if they choose) to try to score.

Sarsen may not remember the specifics of every practice, especially from two decades ago. But she recalls Witmer, who played left forward at Lakeland and finished her collegiate career as a center back, as being super competitive.

Playing in the rain on grass one day, she noted Witmer took control of the game vs. then-big rival Carmel and scored the winning goal in a 1-0 game.

"There are so many memories," said Sarsen, who estimates Witmer is one of 25-30 of her former Lakeland players who has gone on to coach field hockey at some level.

Scores were erased following each quarter the squads played Monday. But at the end of one, Lakeland was up 3-0. it scored the three goals over a late four-minute, 10-second span. the last one coming off a Bella Basulto blast off a corner that was deflected in front. Balsulto then stopped a Conard corner after time expired in the quarter.

Young Lakeland, which starts its regular-season play Tuesday vs. Putnam Valley, may or may not prove to be like some of those past state-championship squads.

But it proved to be the kind of team Witmer wanted her team to face.

"It's fun for them and they get to see what a high-caliber team looks like," she explained before the game.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Field hockey: Lakeland alum Sara (Gonzalez) Witmer coaches vs. mentor