Field Hockey, Lacrosse
Favorite athlete: I am going to have to say Elena Romesburg. I watched her play when I was younger, and she has been a big impact as a coach.
Favorite team: Philadelphia Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: It was so much fun winning the PAGLA tournament with my Deep Run rec team. Doing this with best friends who are also my high school and club teammates made it special.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: One time at a winter league game, my socks were wet from walking through the snow and my feet and toes were so numb that I freaked out. My coach had to rub my feet and toes to warm them up and calm me down. Thanks (and sorry) again coach!
Music on playlist: Anything country
Future plans: I will be attending UMass Lowell where I will be playing lacrosse and studying accounting and finance.
Words to live by: “Right Here, Right Now”
One goal before turning 30: I cannot wait to get my own puppy(ies)
One thing people don’t know about you: I am actually a pretty good juggler.
By Mary Jane Souder
Leah Verespy tried just about every sport imaginable as a youngster.
It took the Pennridge senior absolutely no time at all to decide on a favorite. Lacrosse was a clear winner from the start.
As a matter of fact, according to her father, the then third grader – shortly after her introduction to the sport with Deep Run Valley Sports Association - declared, “I think this is my sport.”
And it definitely was.
Verespy is signed, sealed and all but delivered to the University of Massachusetts Lowell where she will continue her lacrosse career at the Division 1 level.
For now, however, the senior – one of four captains - has some unfinished business with her Pennridge squad that is rolling through the SOL and has its sights set high. There’s no denying the impact of Verespy, a rare four-year varsity starter.
“Everybody sees Leah as a leader,” Pennridge coach Maddie Dachowski said. “She has twin sisters who are freshmen, and it’s really easy for our underclassmen, our JV players to go to Leah to lean on.
“I have leaned on Leah a lot to be my eyes and ears on the field because no matter how much coaching I do from the sidelines, I’m not on the field in the moment. I rely on my players to tell me what we need because they’re the ones out there, and Leah is my number one go-to person who I’m checking with. How are we feeling on the field? What do we need to change? Leah’s my girl.”
For Dachowski – herself a former standout at Pennridge and then at La Salle University, it’s been something of a full circle moment to coach Verespy as well as many of her teammates.
“I have known Leah since I was a player at Pennridge High School myself,” the Rams’ coach said. “She was part of the Deep Run lacrosse program, and being involved in Deep Run throughout high school and college as well helped me get acquainted with some of my players at a very young age.”
Verespy and Dachowski are something of kindred spirits when it comes to lacrosse. It’s a toss-up which one is more passionate about the sport.
“I watched coach Maddie play lacrosse when she was in high school and now to be coached by her – when I was little, I would ask to train with her,” Verespy said. “I just loved to play as much as I could.
“She has been so much fun to have as a coach. She motivates us to enjoy the game and play hard. We have big goals on our team, and I am excited to continue this journey with my teammates who I am so lucky to have as my best friends. This is a team sport, and we are all-in on supporting each other.”
A lacrosse love affair from the start
With parents (Matt and Stacey Verespy) who competed in sports -her father played football and wrestled while her mother played soccer, basketball and field hockey, it was hardly a surprise that their children love sports.
“My dad learned girls’ lacrosse watching me play and then picked up the game,” Verespy said. “He knows the game well and coached my Deep Run team with(teammate) Cayla Wurz’s dad, Mr. Wurz, for several seasons.”
The beginning of Verespy’s lacrosse career also marked the beginning of what will undoubtedly be lifelong friendships.
“Honestly, I’ve been playing with half of these girls- they’re still on the team, and they’re all my best friends,” Verespy said. “I played soccer – it was fun, but I knew it wasn’t for me.
“My mom tried to make me play field hockey when I was little, but I was like, ‘Nah.’”
Verespy’s mother ‘encouraged’ her to give hockey a try again in middle school, so she did and has stayed with it through high school.
“Some of my best friends I got from field hockey, which is super fun,” she said. “I was playing field hockey, lacrosse and basketball for middle school.”
By the time she reached high school, basketball was phased out, and as a freshman, she found herself in the starting lineup of a lacrosse team she’d followed
for as long as she could remember.
“My mom would always bring me to Pennridge games, and I do backyard trainings with Maddie all the time,” Verespy said. “I watched her play when she was in high school, which is a full circle moment.
“I remember it being super fast, and I loved the pace of it.”
That hasn’t changed for the senior midfielder, who recently surpassed the 100-goal milestone.
“Leah used to come watch me when I was a player at La Salle,” Dachowski said. “I’ve known the Verespy family for a long time. I worked with Leah at Ultimate Lacrosse.
“I remember Leah when she was a fifth grader, so to be her coach when she scored this milestone is full circle, and I’m just very proud to be her coach and to be with her when she hit this accomplishment.”
Verespy’s contributions on the field are not limited to scoring goals.
“She always showed that promise as not just a goal scorer but as a feeder and playmaker,” Dachowski said. “She’s very familiar with the X, she puts herself there often, and I think it gave her that role of leadership earlier on the field than anybody else around her.
“Leah has so much IQ, and she’s such a quarterback of the team. She’s just really smart, and she is fantastic the way she handles the ball. Her stick skills, the way she flows and moves with a lacrosse stick – as a coach, you can tell in a couple minutes when someone’s going to have that connection and that flow, and that’s Leah with the way she plays and carries herself on the field. She’s very skilled, very technical, and she’s very into getting it right. That’s what really makes Leah good.”
Lax in a box
Verespy’s love for lacrosse is underscored by the fact that she not only played club with Ultimate since she was in fourth grade but also played box lacrosse with Penn Lax All-Stars.
“I had a good friend on my Ultimate team, and her brothers played,” Verespy said. “So, I think she kind of convinced me. It always seemed like it would be fun to put on all the pads and stuff and just be able to hit people because you can’t do that in girls’ lacrosse.”
Verespy joined a club team and competed on the indoor sport played professionally by the Philadelphia Wings.
“We’ve had tournaments in Connecticut, we went to Loyola,” she said. “It’s just super fun. It’s basically playing lacrosse with no rules.
“I was part of the first all-girls' team. Normally, it was with the boys, but they started an all-girls team my freshman year.”
The risk of injury is always there, and Verespy – with college lacrosse on the horizon - opted to not play this year.
Field hockey: the other sport
Convinced by her mother to play field hockey, it was never Verespy’s sport of choice.
“I never made my feelings about field hockey a secret,” she said. “It took until this past year for me to say it wasn’t that bad playing.
“My mom gave me the option of tennis or field hockey – she said I had to do something besides lacrosse. My field hockey coach, Mrs. Detweiler, in middle school helped me to develop the few skills I had, so I decided field hockey in high school it would be.”
Freshman year, Verespy played one game on the JV and then was promoted to the varsity the rest of the season.
“I made some great friends, which made it easy to keep playing,” she said. “Senior year I wasn’t sure how it would go. Some of my close friends graduated, and we had a coaching change.”
Elena Romesburg – a field hockey and lacrosse standout at CB West – was named Pennridge’s new field hockey coach last fall.
“Elena coached my younger sisters in lacrosse, so I knew how much energy she would bring to the (hockey) team,” Verespy said. “Even though we were a program that was struggling, Elena never let that be a factor. She kept working with us and trying to help us grow as a team.”
Romesburg put her name in the lacrosse program’s record books at James Madison University.
“Her athleticism is kind of crazy,” Verespy said of the 5-2 Romesburg. “Our team went to Top Golf and who do you think hit the ball the farthest?”
Romesburg points to Verespy as one of the best athletes she’s ever coached.
“She has such an incredible IQ and is situationally aware in both sports,” said Romesburg, who is also the head coach of CB West lacrosse this spring. “She always leaves an impact on the field and is a natural leader just by how she carries herself. She plays so hard, but what’s most impressive is the work she puts in off the field.
“She’s always looking to get extra reps or watching college games or playing with her sisters. She’s going to be successful in whatever she does because of her work ethic. I’m super excited to follow her career at UMASS Lowell and to play her (team) later this season. She is also a phenomenal student and again a true example of what it means to balance school and sports at the highest level.”
Field hockey last fall was a family affair for Verespy. Her twin sisters, Kayla and Jenna, both played, and her mother was an assistant to Romesburg.
A bright future
With her final year of high school on the home stretch, Verespy – who also has been involved in unified bocce for three years - can’t hide her emotions when asked what it will be like to see her athletic career at Pennridge come to an end.
“I’ll probably start crying,” she said.
Some of that emotion is based on the fact that she is on the final lap with her twin sisters. Kayla is a swing player on attack while Jenna is on the JV but dresses for varsity.
“(Jenna) has had an opportunity to get in on defense,” Verespy said. “We have a strong defense, so she knows she has to be patient and wait her turn.
“My sisters are in a similar position that I was in coming into high school where they have a friend group they will be playing with for several years. Keep your eye out for Pennridge lacrosse 2028.”
Off the athletic field, Verespy is a strong student and will major in accounting and finance at the University of Massachusetts Lowell where she will continue her lacrosse career.
“I always knew I wanted to play in college,” she said. “I started club – I would go to all the tournaments, send out emails. I honestly had no clue where I was going to go.
“I was just considering everyone. I would talk to every coach I came across basically.”
UMass Lowell wasted no time before reaching out to Verespy at the first opportunity.
“Sept. 1 of your junior year is when coaches can contact you,” she said. “They might have been the first school to reach out to me.
“The coach tried to call me, but I was in the middle of a field hockey game. After my game, I went on my phone and saw I had a missed call. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I need to call her right back.’ She basically said right there she was going to offer me, and we would talk later.”
In mid-September, Verespy visited the America East school.
“I just loved the campus,” she said. “They gave me a full tour of everything. I sat down with the coach, and she was like, ‘So?’ I got really nervous and said, ‘I need to talk to my parents.’ I walked out and called her five minutes later and said, ‘I accept the offer.’”
For now, Verespy is focused on her final high school season. She also is getting a taste of coaching as the coach of Ultimate’s 32s (players from the Class of 2032).
“They’re adorable – I really like it,” she said. “I actually ref a bunch of them, so I see them around all the time. I’ll be at their games. It’s so fun because I know so many people in the lacrosse world.”
If Verespy’s journey sounds familiar to her coach, that’s because it is.
“She very much reminds me of myself,” Dachowski said. “She just loves lacrosse, she’s so passionate about the sport, but she’s a great student, she’s going to go to college and get a great education, but lacrosse is what she loves doing, and you can tell by the way she plays, and she gets to do it with her best friends, and that’s what makes it even more fun to watch.”
If coaching is also in Verespy’s future, she has role models who have paved the way.
“Elena and Maddie are a reminder of what I want for myself,” she said. “Go to school, get a great education, play a sport I’m passionate about and have fun.”
