Middle Township sending another lacrosse player to LaSalle

Posted: January 7th 2024

Middle Township senior three-sport athlete Brooke Nabb is set to play college lacrosse at Division I LaSalle

By BRIAN CUNNIFF

CapeAtlanticLive.com

The Middle Township High School girls lacrosse program’s pipeline to LaSalle University is continuing.

Brooke Nabb, a senior defender and midfielder for the Lady Panthers recently signed a National Letter of Intent to accept scholarship money and play lacrosse at the Division I Philadelphia school.

“The team, when I first met them, I just felt like there was this instant chemistry,” Nabb said. “The coaches were definitely my favorite once I met them. It just instantly clicked for me.”

When she first puts on the LaSalle uniform, Nabb will become the fourth Middle graduate to play women’s lacrosse for the Explorers, joining LaSalle graduates Bridget Ruskey and Allison Hunter, and another, Kira Sides, who eventually transferred to and is still playing lacrosse at The College of New Jersey.

Nabb, a three-sport athlete at Middle who also played soccer and is currently on the swim team, said she received some guidance from Ruskey, who served as an assistant girls soccer coach at Middle last fall.

“I hadn’t met the coaches there yet, but Bridget was telling me about her experiences at LaSalle,” Nabb said. “It was nice hearing her point of view, and I know she did really well at LaSalle.”

Nabb, who was a Cape Express/CapeAtlanticLive.com all-star as a defender in soccer for the 2023 season, is one of the top defensive players in the Cape-Atlantic League in lacrosse. She was far and away the team’s leader in ground balls collected with 57 last season as a junior last season. She also added two goals.

Nabb, who plays club lacrosse for the Shamrocks out of West Deptford, said she had also received interest from Virginia Wesleyan and Stevenson University in addition to LaSalle.

Nabb said that, when she entered high school, she had hoped to eventually earn the opportunity to play a sport in college, but not necessarily lacrosse at first.

“I definitely wanted to play in college but I thought it would be soccer and not lacrosse,” she said. “Soccer was my favorite sport when I got to high school, but lacrosse is my favorite now. Once I got better at it, it seemed like more coaches were noticing me. I started to think lacrosse could take me far and that’s when I really got into it.”

Nabb, who played basketball as a freshman and sophomore before switching to swimming as her winter sport as a junior, believes playing three sports at Middle has been extremely rewarding.

“It’s definitely hard but I met all these amazing teammates in each sport,” she said. “Each sport gives me momentum to go to the next. Getting in shape with soccer helps me in swimming and then the endurance I get from swimming helps me in lacrosse.”

That momentum has driven Nabb all the way to a scholarship opportunity at LaSalle.