KENOSHA, Wis. — Alexandria Shea plays one of the toughest positions in sports. She has not backed away from the challenge of playing lacrosse goalie — or any other challenge — in her four years at Indian Trail High School.
Kenosha Co-op lacrosse coach Cal Becker saw Shea’s willingness to sacrifice her body when she first tried on the goalie pads as a fifth-grader.
“First of all, you’ve got to have a mindset for doing it, a little bit crazy, actually,” Becker said. “Especially starting to play at this varsity level, those shots come in pretty fast.”
Shea was crazy enough to try it and determined enough to stick with it. Defending has always been her strong suit, even in ice hockey, her first sport. Lacrosse offered the chance to try something new.
“We didn’t have a [lacrosse] goalie, and I wanted to try it because it looked fun,” Shea recalled. “In hockey, I didn’t get to be goalie, and always wanted to try, but it was a little late.”
Shea was just the goalie Kenosha needed. She is a three-year varsity starter on the field, voted a team captain by her lacrosse and hockey teammates. She has also represented Team Wisconsin at the US Lacrosse Women’s National Tournament.
Shea stands out in the classroom, too, maintaining a 5.3 GPA in the Medical Science Academy at Indian Trail.
“She just loves science,” said Tracy Metzler, the MedSci Academy leader. “She’s a very well-rounded student, interested in everything going on in her classes and works really hard.”
Even playing multiple sports, Shea makes time to give back. She organizes team volunteer nights at Feed My Starving Children, packaging food to help people in need around the world. Shea also stops by her former middle school to speak with kids about preparing for the high school experience.
“She was able to motivate a lot of those kids to do their work or to get involved in more sports or clubs because if she could do it, they felt like they could do it,” said Nicole Jones, one of Shea’s former teachers at Bullen Middle School.
Alex has performed in the classroom, on the ice and on the field. Her work will pay off next fall when she will enroll at UW-Eau Claire and play goalie for the lacrosse team. Shea plans to major in biomedical engineering, and may even lace up her skates with the university’s club hockey team.
“I am proud that I’ve been able to keep doing everything that I love,” Shea said. “And that I’m able to inspire others to push themselves and keep doing all these things.”