Leone is The White Plains Examiner’s Spring Athlete of the Season
Coming into the 2012 spring lacrosse season the White Plains Tigers had to fill a void left by the graduation of Julia Martino who might have been the most talented lacrosse player in school history. After this season junior midfielder Kate Leone made quite a name for herself and she is The White Plains Examiner’s Spring Female Athlete of the Season for White Plains High School.
Leone was named All-Section and All-League in 2012 and she was also recognized as a New York State Scholar Athlete for the second year in a row. This spring Leone had 61 goals and 10 assists, which gave her a total of 71 points for the season. In 2011 she had 63 points as a sophomore.
Watching Kate Leone running with a lacrosse ball on the field you get the sense very quickly that she is a confident player who isn’t afraid of anything. Girl’s lacrosse is less physical than boy’s lacrosse but its still a very intense game that is played with a lot of emotion.
Like football if you don’t play lacrosse with emotion and strength your opponent will walk right over you. Kate Leone is the type of player who runs right through traffic to get to the goal and she is very hard to stop.
This spring Leone was coached by her father Mike Leone who became the new lacrosse coach at White Plains. Mike Leone thinks his daughter worked very hard during the offseason and believes that Kate’s stick skills are her strongest attribute as a lacrosse player.
“In the offseason Kate had worked hard on her stick skills focusing on her left hand. Her hard work has paid off – Kate, a natural righty, scored more than half her goals left-handed this year,” said Mike Leone. “Right now her greatest strength is probably her stick skills – she is equally adept with both her hands making its very difficult to guard her one on one both in the open field and the offensive zone.”
During the summer Kate Leone plans to keep a very active schedule that will aide in her improvement as a lacrosse player.
“This offseason Kate will focus on her defense as well as her strength & conditioning,” said Mike Leone. “She’s playing both for Tiger Lacrosse (the White Plains Summer Team) as well as Westchester Elite run by Cece Berger. She’s also attending a few summer lacrosse camps run by various colleges.”
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