By Tori Lubin ’18 Web Features Editor

Olivia Troy ’17 sits casually by the window seats at 7 a.m on a Monday. Her poise lends itself to that of an ambitious athlete who is ready for competition, a description fitting of a lacrosse player as serious as Troy.

“My favorite part about lacrosse is playing in games,” Troy said. She enjoys “the pressure but also the excitement of scoring a goal.”

As of next fall, Troy will continue playing lacrosse at University of Connecticut, where she will be playing for UConn’s Division I team.

In addition to lacrosse, Troy demonstrates athleticism in other sports. She  played basketball at her previous private school and also participated in soccer as a goalie. As a freshman, Troy explored lacrosse on the Staples team. Currently, she is the captain of both the lacrosse and basketball team.

But lacrosse holds a special place in Troy’s heart.  This past summer, she participated in Under-Armor’s All-American tournament where she represented Team New England against lacrosse teams from different regions. She is also a part of an outside club lacrosse team, CT Grizzlies.   

“The thing is with girls’ lacrosse, it’s such a tight knit thing,” Troy said. “You are literally spending everyday with these people, and you get yelled at with these same people and everybody is complaining about the same thing.”

Playing on her club team aided her in cementing a position on the UConn women’s lacrosse team. Despite the fact that she was initially told that the recruiting class was full, Troy’s coach discovered that there were, in fact, spaces available.

“I got an offer from UConn on Halloween,” Troy said, smiling. “They said to take a couple days to think about it. Two hours later, I called them back and said, ‘This isn’t a couple of days, but I want to take the offer you gave me and play for UConn.’”

Troy’s decision to continue her vigorous sports agenda in college is a confident one.

“I’ve always known I wanted to play sports in college,” Troy said. “I would be unhappy not having sports in my life just because you gain so many friends from sports, and you have things to do when you have nothing to do.”

Although Troy is excited for college life, she reveals that there are aspects of Staples she will miss.

“I have a really nice group of friends,” Troy said. “It is going to be so upsetting to not have them anymore, because you see each other every day—you hang out after school everyday together.”

Claudia Lagnese ’17, a friend and teammate of Troy’s, shared a similar sentiment.

“Our friendship consists of a lot of laughs and good times,” Lagnese said. “She’s always there for me and she knows I’m always there for her. I don’t know what I would do without her.”