Hicksville senior lacrosse player Hunter Isnardi recently broke the program record for goals in a career of 176. She didn’t stop there, obliterating the record by another 14 goals.
“Coach told me that I had a chance at it early in the season—I was not aware of the number,” said Isnardi. “I found out after the game when I scored two goals in OT to win it and coach said ‘congratulations on the scoring record’. It was very unexpected and I’m very proud of it because I’ve been putting in a lot of hard work in lacrosse for my whole life,” she said.
In that victory, Isnardi had a tremendous game—she scored six goals and had three assists to lead her team to victory against Locust Valley.
Despite her best efforts, the Comets will not be playing in the postseason this season.
“We definitely should’ve made the playoffs,” she said. “The season didn’t go quite as we’d like. We lost some games that we could’ve won,” she said as she reflected on her final ride as a high school star.
The ever-optimistic Isnardi found the silver lining in the season, however.
“As a whole, we did well,” she said. “We worked well together. The three captains wanted to make sure that team chemistry was a strength and I think it went well on-and-off the field.”
Upon the completion of the end of the school year, Isnardi will shift her focus on her collegiate career at Mercy College. She noted that she needs to improve on her shooting accuracy—although that is certainly nitpicking when you consider her scoring prowess.
“I need to work on shooting lower. If you shoot high early in games, goalies will know to look for that,” Isnardi said.
Isnardi was proud of her defense this year and felt she also did well on draws this season.
Head coach Mary Schneider spoke glowingly of her captain.
“She has a tremendous work ethic,” Schneider said. “She has been a starter since eighth grade and has been a significant contributor since then. Hunter has a great sense of the field and is a great open field player. She can catch anything and get through the toughest defenses. She’ll get fouled all the time and still hold her composure, but most impressively she is so incredibly humble and a great team player.”
However, college is a different animal and the caliber of talent is a notch above high school. Isnardi chose Mercy for a variety of reasons but most importantly, she stated that she “really liked the coach” and felt the “team had really good chemistry,” which is just as important as wins to her.
Whatever happens in college, Isnardi can take pride in knowing that her hard work paid off in high school and the proof is in the record books. With a staggering number such as 190 goals, don’t count on that being broken anytime soon.
