by Sean Begin
When a student-athlete coming out of high school chooses a school to play for, they usually do so expecting to remain there for several years, earning a degree while playing a sport they love for a coach that they think can help improve their ability on the field.
But when you go through three coaches in four years, that growth can sometimes be stifled. In some cases, like Amanda Toke, you work through it, and come out a better athlete and person thanks to the time with those coaches, however brief it may be.
Toke was recruited to Central in Fall 2011 by then-coach Rachel Tringali. After the season, Kelly Nangle was hired to replace Tringali as head coach.
Two years later, Nangle was gone for Liberty University, leaving behind a lacrosse team that had a conference record of 7-2, and made the Northeast Conference tournament for the first time in program history.
“It was hard letting Coach Kelly go,” admits Toke. “Tringali got let go but Kelly chose to leave. And that was hard for us to accept, like ‘you want to leave us? We love you, you love us.'”
Nangle’s departure may have been especially hard on Toke, who said she gained the confidence needed to become one of the team leaders under Nangle’s guidance.
“[Nangle] helped me a lot because she gave me a lot more opportunities to play and prove myself,” Toke said.
The school hired current head coach Laura Campbell to replace Nangle, making her Toke’s third coach since becoming a Blue Devil. But the change hasn’t been too difficult, thanks in part to Campbell herself.
“Coach Campbell has really helped with the transition, like making us comfortable with her and her feel comfortable with us,” said Toke.
During the offseason, Campbell named Toke one of the team’s captains, a move Toke said helped boost her confidence even more, despite the position bringing her some anxiousness.
“When you’re on the field and you’re losing, its hard to get the team’s spirits up when your spirits are down as well,” said Toke of the challenges she sometimes faces as captain. “You can’t think about yourself. You have to think about the team. It can be a little difficult.”
When fellow senior Claire Healy was named co-captain before the start of the season, Toke settled further into her leadership role.
“We complement each other,” said Toke of her relationship with Healy. “Claire has been a huge help because she’s so vocal and very outgoing. [She] brings humor to the team. I’m more quiet.”
The transition from coach to coach could have proved to be difficult, especially from Nangle to Campbell, after Nangle had two years to instill her philosophies into the growing team.
Toke, however, attributes the team’s success over the last couple years to putting aside personal belief in order to embrace those philosophies championed by Nangle — and now the new ones by Campbell.
“We could have been like ‘no,’ I don’t want to listen to you. This is what works for us. We know better,'” said Toke. “But once we really accepted and didn’t reject what the coaches were saying, that’s when we were so successful, and that’s when we started working together.”
“We weren’t playing like individuals, we we’re playing as a team and setting each other up for success.”
Toke began playing lacrosse around the sixth grade. Her mother signed her up for a youth league at random, and began learning the rules with her daughter. Toke’s lacrosse career started while playing soccer and dancing, among other endeavors, but she quickly fell in love with the sport, leaving the others behind.
Her first taste of competitive play came during a summer league, but she soon joined the squad at Voorhees High School near her hometown of High Bridge, New Jersey. There, she was named First Team All-Conference for three straight years and First Team All-Area for two.
Toke describes herself as quick-of-foot on the field, but that she still needs to work on her shot selection and one-on-one defense because, as she said with emphasis, “I hate being beat.”
Besides her physical play, Toke acknowledges she still needs to be more vocal, especially on the field.
“I know people are looking to the seniors to be the vocal leaders. So I’ve got to be vocal. Little by little I try to be more encouraging,” she said.
“If I really notice something, like advice I want to give to a player, I won’t be scared to go up to them and say ‘try to tweak this, see if this works for you’ because that’s how the seniors helped me when I was an underclassmen.”
Those seniors were also part of the reason Toke chose to come to Central in the first place.
“When I came on my recruiting trip I just loved the team. They just made me feel like I was part of the team already,” she said. Those seniors instilled a sense of pride in Central lacrosse in Toke and her young teammates.
Toke and Healy, along with fellow seniors Meaghan McCurry and Cierra Ward (both fifth-year players having redshirted previous seasons) and Ashley Olhausen (who joined the team the same year as Toke and Healy) have tried to do the same thing with the younger players on this team.
Toke majors in biology at Central, and while lacrosse isn’t her future, she isn’t done playing. Next year, she’ll head across the pond to England to play a fifth year of lacrosse while attending graduate school for biology.
Time being, Toke will continue to learn to raise her voice and exert her leadership on the lacrosse field.