By Emily Vojtech

Joel Tornell has 16 years of experience coaching girls lacrosse. He has coached at the youth and high school levels. He coached for 5 years at Owatonna High School and 10 years as assistant coach at Lakeville South High School. This year was his first season as head coach, and he was voted Head Coach of the Year. The Head Coach of the Year award is voted on by peers: other lacrosse coaches around the state.

“I started coaching lacrosse by accident,” Tornell shared. Tornell is a teacher and has also coached hockey. A parent at Owatonna spoke to him at conferences and talked him into being an assistant coach for the girls’ lacrosse team. While helping out with the youth programs in Lakeville, the athletic director at Lakeville South High School reached out to see if Tornell would be an assistant coach at the high school, and he accepted.

“Because I’m a teacher, I approach coaching from a teacher lense. Teach instead of demand,” Tornell said. “You just have to get into it and learn the game,” he said about coaching.

Tornell has coached many of his current players since youth lacrosse. “I’ve known these kids for so long. I was looking forward to working with them this season. They’re a really special group,” Tornell stated.

“After games, opponents said they really appreciated playing against our kids. They would say our kids were kind,” Tornell recalled when looking back on the season.

The Lakeville South High School girls lacrosse program had a very successful season this year. The Lakeville South Cougars ended the regular season undefeated and made a huge run in the state tournament. They won the third place game in the state tournament over Stillwater 17-9.

“Family. That’s what we are,” Tornell replied when asked to describe the season in one word.

Coach Tornell shared that they have a really great group coming back next year, despite losing some great players after this season. “They are hungry and ready to go. They already miss each other. The team is already talking about next year,” he shared.

When asked if he wanted to share anything with the lacrosse community in Minnesota, Tornell replied: “I’m just really glad the sport is growing. I hope we can reach the magic number to get two classes at the high school level. I definitely encourage people to give lacrosse a try!”