Claire Gorczynski admittedly isn’t the greatest dribbler when it comes to field hockey. She also revealed she puts in a little field hockey work in the offseason but focuses mostly on her main sport of basketball.
Take that, and throw in the fact she played the first 10 games of the season with damaged ligaments in her ankle, and it’s pretty darn amazing that despite being out for the rest of the season, the sophomore still led the Cardinals in scoring with 10 goals and three assists as of Oct. 19.
That’s what comes from being a stellar all-around athlete.
Gorczynski didn’t start playing field hockey until seventh grade but led Lawrence with 10 goals as a freshman. Last spring was her first year playing lacrosse, and she collected 15 goals, seven assists, 50 ground balls and 29 draw controls.
“I also did softball and swimming and I always picked it up quick,” she said. “I’m a fast learner when I comes to sports and I’m really lucky with the athleticism I’ve gotten. It’s great.”
But all the ability in the world cannot stop athletes from being injured, and Gorczynski’s ankle issues derailed what was an outstanding sophomore year. The good news is she will be back in time for her main sport. As the starting point guard last year, she finished third on the Cards in points, rebounds and steals, and second in assists and 3-pointers.
“We are a different team with her on the court,” coach Dana Williams said. “To have that kind of statistical impact as a freshman speaks volumes for what she means to our program.
“She is so much more than her stats though. She is truly a competitor who loves Lawrence and plays hard for her teammates. She embodies the cliché of ‘running through a brick wall for her team.’ She’s an incredible person off the court as well. I can’t wait to get started and have her back on the court.”
That is the one blessing of Gorczynski’s unfortunate injury, that she will return in December.
But while the hoops team will have her back, the field hockey team lost a big part of its energy for the final nine games of the season. Heading into an Oct. 21 game at Burlington Township, Lawrence had lost its first five games without its main scoring threat after starting 3-6-1.
“The hustle and determination on the forward line is definitely missing,” Cards coach Paige MacArthur said. “We have to pull players into different positions that they may not feel comfortable in or have not played before. It’s definitely harder to score without her.”
The injury stems back to a game last basketball season. Gorczynski went up for a shot and landed on an opponent’s foot, twisting her ankle. It occurred during the holiday break, so she was able to heal and play the rest of the hoops season and all of lacrosse.
But she was never completely pain-free, and then aggravated it over the summer.
She was not about to miss field hockey, but MacArthur noticed something was amiss.
“You would never know she’s hurt or she doesn’t feel right because she’d never tell us,” the coach said. “If she needs a sub because she’s limping in a game, we’d have to ask her and she still tells us ‘no, nothing is wrong.’”
During that time, Gorczynski was doing stretching therapy with LHS trainers Michael Burkeitt and Dominique Peters, but there wasn’t much progress. It finally became too noticeable and too unbearable, and Claire’s mom wisely took her to the doctor, much to the player’s dismay.
“I didn’t go to the doctor before because I didn’t want to be out but at that point I had to,” she said. “It pretty much bothered me all during the season.”
The checkup showed sprained ligaments and a bruised bone, and the remedy is to rest from all sports while undergoing six weeks of physical therapy.
“I was really disappointed,” Gorczynski said. “But I kind of knew what was gonna happen. I’m just happy it wasn’t worse than that.”
After the diagnosis, like many great athletes do, Gorczynski unfairly beat herself up.
“She goes so hard for us, and when she found out she couldn’t play the rest of the season she texted me,” MacArthur said. “And the amount of times she said ‘I’m really sorry, I’m really sorry,’ . . . I said ‘Claire you can’t apologize for being hurt. You have to get better in order to be a better athlete. There’s nothing I could get upset with you about, I’m glad you’re finally getting the physical therapy.’ I just wish we found out sooner.”
And while a player’s health always comes first, that doesn’t take away from the fact the field hockey team lost a good one.
“She is overall as a player just amazing,” said MacArthur, sounding a lot like Williams. “She has a great personality, comes to practice every day working hard. She wants to get better. She wants to win every game. She’s determined to get every ball and get that ball in the goal.
“She plays hard; she’s an amazing all-around athlete. Basketball is her top sport. Bu you wouldn’t notice that on the field. You would think field hockey is her go-to sport.”
Gorczynski did a few hockey camps in first grade, and when she got to middle school, her autumn sport choice came down to field hockey or soccer. She figured hockey was “more my speed” and upon starting it in seventh grade, she got help from coach Katie DeMarco (also MacArthur’s assistant) on how to understand all the rules and officials’ calls.
MacArthur saw her talent and desire the minute she arrived in ninth grade and put her at starting center forward. Gorczynski had the usual freshman jitters after going from playing seventh-graders to high school seniors, but still thrived by season’s end.
In assessing her scoring ability, the coach feels speed is a big part of it, while the technique is still being developed.
“She’s fast, so she gets a lot of breakaways,” MacArthur said. “She definitely still has skills to work on. She likes to just plow through the defense, she tries to dribble straight through them, which obviously doesn’t work on every team. Some teams it works perfectly but with bigger, stronger teams that are more skilled, it doesn’t work and gets frustrated with herself, because she wants that goal.
“We tell her ‘Claire it’s just a matter of a pull right around the defender, you pull right and take a shot on the net.’ Last year she did not have a beautiful shot, she went one v one on the goalie a lot. But this year she was ripping shots at the top of the circle and they looked absolutely beautiful.”
Gorczynski feels speed and the ability to get to the right spot near the goal are pluses.
“At most schools we’re on grass, so it’s a lot harder to dribble, so people don’t have as much dribbling skills,” she said. “The transition from middle school to high school I had to work a lot with my dribbling. I’m still not a very good dribbler. A lot of times my speed and my positioning gets me to the right spot where I have the ability to get past people.”
Besides being successful in field hockey, Gorczynski is also getting the conditioning that will help her when the winter and spring sports arrive. In fact, each sport helps the other.
“My coach says in lacrosse and field hockey there’s certain things similar to basketball,” she said. “And since basketball is my first sport, that helps me think about things I can do on the court. And playing field hockey gives the athleticism you need. The amount of exercise and running prepares me.”
Sadly, that is over for a while. Gorczynski lamented being on the sidelines when she watched Lawrence lose in a shootout during the first game she missed. She also hoped to break her mark of 10 goals from last year but had to be satisfied with tying it in just half a season.
“She wanted more than 10,” MacArthur said. “I told her ‘Claire you’re only a sophomore; you have two more years of this. You’re gonna be our starting center forward. You’re gonna have multiple opportunities to score even more the next two seasons.”
And that little chat has helped Gorczynski persevere.
“I wish I could be playing and helping my team,” she said. “It’s really hard to watch. But at the end of day it’s for the best. I have to have my body healthy for the other seasons and then for field hockey my junior year.
“I’m really excited to see what we have in store in basketball. I think we’re constantly improving and I think we can have a better season than last year.”
Fortunately for the Cardinals, Gorczynski will be part of it. It’s just a bad break she had to miss the last half of field hockey to mend up for it.
