She came to U of T as a major in world literature and philosophy. But after devoting a significant amount of her time to playing on the Blues lacrosse team and seeing doors she could have never imagined open as a result, Deanna Merkeley has developed a different philosophy about her future.
Growing up in Orangeville, Ontario, Merkeley did not get seriously involved in organized sports until her high school years. When she chose to come to U of T, it was strictly for academic reasons, with sports merely an afterthought.
In Merkeley’s first year at U of T, she tried out for both the field hockey and lacrosse teams. It was immediately evident she could become a standout lacrosse player, so that was the path her varsity sports career took, though she continued to participate in other sports at an intramural level.
As it turned out, Merkeley became such a dominant force as an OUA net minder that she was recruited to play for Ontario’s provincial lacrosse team, competing against some of the best lacrosse players in North America. It was then that she realized athletics could become more than just a secondary part of her life.
“I didn’t really think there was that much for me in lacrosse. I didn’t figure that it would be so prominent in my university experience,” said Merkeley, though many of her family members played and still play lacrosse, including her cousin Tom Still, who is a goalie in the professional National Lacrosse League with the Washington Power.
Merkeley discovered that she too had a talent for the game in her time with the Ontario team.
“I think back in ’98 or ’99, when I played for Ontario in my first year, it was a real eye-opening experience. My first time to play down in the States and to see some of these amazing lacrosse players I had only read about, things like that. That’s when I realized, ‘Oh, maybe I can keep going with this.'”
Merkeley doubts whether she can have a future career in lacrosse, given that the men’s game is in its fledgling stages at the professional level and the sport is still strictly at an amateur level for women. However, her experience in athletics at U of T has convinced her she would like to stay involved in sports as a part of her future career.
“Lacrosse has probably taken me in this direction of finishing my degree here and then going back to school and doing something in physical therapy, fitness and health, something like that,” said Merkeley.
Merkeley and the Blues team had plenty of success in her five years at U of T, but it was not until this season that they reaped the full rewards of their efforts, winning the school’s first OUA championship. Although the sport is still in its growth stages at the university, having only been under the umbrella of the OUA for four years, the journey to the top seemed excruciatingly long to Merkeley.
“We were kind of like the Detroit Red Wings for a while, where we just couldn’t hold it together in the playoffs,” said Merkeley. The best example of this pattern came in 2000, when the team went undefeated in the regular season before losing 10-9 to Laurier in a heartbreaking championship game loss.
“I remember we were disappointed because we thought we had the perfect season going, We were, I think, the strongest team in the league last year, and it didn’t show in that last game, but it really brought us together, the veterans on our team, for this year. It really bonded us.”
This season, U of T went into the playoffs after finishing a close second place behind Guelph, and the seemingly inevitable title showdown between by far the league’s two most dominant teams came to pass in the gold medal game. However, this time the Blues rose to the occasion, capping a sensational weekend of play at the OUA championship tournament with a decisive 13-7 win over the Gryphons for the team’s first league title.
“People just scored at will. It was incredible to watch. People made the good, safe plays and made the excellent passes and just scored the goals when it counted,” recalled Merkeley.
It may be a cliché, but Merkeley said the Blues benefited from concentrating on one game at a time this past season and not getting ahead of themselves. That, she credited to the strong veteran leadership on the team.
“We had a much different approach this year. We didn’t count our eggs before they were hatched, so to speak. Our captains, June Shiraishi and Angela Morrocco, were very good at focusing us and focusing us on the task at hand, the immediate task, and not looking on to something like the gold medal game.”
Of course, it helped having the winner of four straight OUA goalie of the year awards as the last line of defence, but Merkeley deferred the credit for that to her teammates.
“It’s easy to win an award like that when you have an excellent team in front of you and that’s helped me a lot. Especially this year, my defence was phenomenal. They blew me away every time we stepped on to the field,” said Merkeley, who mentioned the contribution of one player in particular. “This year we had Deborah Irwin…an excellent defensive as well as offensive player. She really shut down a lot of the top scoring centres of the opposition, so that helped me a lot as well.”
While Merkeley was shy about tooting her own horn, her coach, Todd Pepper, said that it takes a special player to be a top goalie, and Merkeley fit the bill.
“Sometimes people will look at a goal given up and blame the goalie, but forget about all the other players the ball had to get through before the shot was even taken,” explained Pepper, who said that Merkeley was mentally strong and able to work through a bad goal or two. “She was able to put that sort of thing behind her and just focus on the next shot. She was excellent at making timely saves.”
After the frustrations the Blues had to endure before finally capturing the proverbial brass ring, these qualities certainly proved beneficial this past season.
