From a pool of thousands of high-ranking and talented regional Lacrosse players, Gaelle Jones ’26 has been selected among just 48 women to play on the USA Select U16 National Team.

 

The process began with regional tryouts earlier in the year, from which USA Lacrosse selected roughly 180 players to attend the USA Lacrosse National Combine in late August 2024. The three-day combine in Sparks, MD, provided elite-level individual and team skill development, strength and conditioning sessions, mental health, and leadership training.

 

After an anxious two-week waiting period, Jones received the exciting news that USA Lacrosse selected her for the prestigious national team. Jones will participate in a sixes development camp (six players per side rather than 11) on the weekend of September 20-22, 2024, followed by an international competition during the Brogden Cup on the weekend of Oct. 25-27, 2024.

 

Jones’s accomplishment is particularly remarkable as she took up the sport only four years ago, and several of those years were mired by the pandemic. Many elite lacrosse players begin years earlier in elementary school.

 

Jones attributes her prior experience as a gymnast to honing the agility, movement skills, and flexibility necessary to excel in Lacrosse.

 

“I discovered I really like this sport,” Jones explained. “I like how it’s a team sport. Gymnastics is such an individual sport. With lacrosse, you meet girls who will be some of your best friends for life. Just like at the combine, I was able to meet so many new people from so many states that I would have never met if I wasn’t playing lacrosse.”

 

Jones is quick to thank and credit the Oak Knoll lacrosse coaching staff, including Head Coach Gianna Sgroi.

 

“I don’t think I would be where I am today (without them),” she related. “They are honestly an amazing coaching staff and amazing people in general. I love them all, and I’m just so fortunate to have met them and been coached by them.”

 

“I'm very proud of her,” stated Jones's mother, Maureen. “Oak Knoll has been a great place and a great opportunity for her to grow as a young woman. She's grown in her faith, as an athlete, and she's just grown as an all-around great person.”

 

When she’s not excelling as a student-athlete, Jones can be found in the kitchen exercising her love of baking or speed-assembling a Lego kit — which is also a passion. She plans to pursue a career in business with a sports concentration.

 

USA Lacrosse — officially recognized by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee — declares Lacrosse to be the “fastest-growing team sport in the United States for most of the last two decades.” Congratulations to Gaelle for her part in fueling that growth and success.