Varsity
Penn Graves Lunger, Head Coach
Kara McCabe, Assistant

Junior Varsity
Eric Lunger, Head Coach
Amy Van Nostrand, Assistant

The girls’ soccer season runs from September through the end of October.

Program Overview
Blair Academy fielded its first girl’s varsity soccer team in the fall of 1990. The team has enjoyed great success including a Prep B state championship, an appearance in the Prep A finals, and several semi-final berths including during the 2004 campaign.

Blair has produced numerous players honored as All-Prep and All-MAPL (Mid-Atlantic Prep League) including: strikers Arielle Aikens ’10, Katherine Newmann ’06, and Mollie Dawson ’05; midfielders Haley San Giacomo ’12, Winnie Adrien ’05 and Beth Martens ’08; defenders Jen Welsh ’05 and Kaitlyn Surdoval ’08, and goalkeeper Staci Alario ’05. Several players have also gone on to compete at the college level including Meredith Habermann ’04 at Franklin and Marshall, Staci Alario at Wooster College, Winnie Adrien at Ithaca College, Beth Martens at the University of Rochester, Kait Surdoval at Middlebury College, Diamond Washington at Army, and Arielle Aikens at the University of Hartford.

Blair’s varsity squad carries between 18 and 22 players. Practice is held daily except Sunday, and a varsity player is expected to attend every practice unless she is working with the trainer to recover from an injury. A typical practice session is two hours long, and the team typically competes in matches on Wednesday and Saturday.

Blair also has a JV team for the development of younger, less experienced players. The JV team plays 14-16 matches per season, including their participation in Peddie Day-where a JV victory is equal to one gained on the varsity level. (All sports compete against Peddie in an effort to win the Kelley-Potter Cup.) On average each season, one to four former jv players move up to the varsity level.

Our schedule gets more competitive each year as well, though it is hard to beat the competition in our own Mid-Atlantic Prep League. MAPL includes our rival, The Peddie School, as well as Hun, Lawrenceville, Hill and Mercersburg Academy. We also typically play Pennington, Mount Kimberly Academy, Princeton Day School, and other local high schools such as North Warren Regional and Pope John Paul XXII High School.

To prepare for this level of competition, we encourage players to attend summer camps, play as often as possible, and train hard individually during the summer months. Players often travel to a camp together, and everyone who seeks to make the varsity team returns to campus in early September for a five-day preseason. The week begins with a fitness test that includes a timed mile, sit-ups, push-ups and skills tests. Varsity players are challenged to complete a mile in fewer than seven minutes.

For the soccer player looking for a challenging academic experience combined with a quality soccer program, Blair is an excellent choice. Please email the coach at lungem@blair.edu for further information.

Blair Soccer is proud to be involved in the Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy

Find out more about JFSA.

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