{"id":13472,"date":"2026-01-29T15:00:47","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T20:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=13472"},"modified":"2026-03-04T16:05:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T21:05:48","slug":"hailey-wexler-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=13472","title":{"rendered":"How I Got Here Hailey Wexler ’26"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first sport I played was ice hockey, and I was 3 years old when I started. In fifth grade, all my friends were playing lacrosse, so I tried that, too. I joined the West Windsor Plainsboro recreation team, and each player took turns being goalie, but no one wanted to be in that position. My coaches said, \u201cYou played hockey; you shouldn\u2019t be afraid of the ball.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The movements for a goalie were natural for me, and I just fell in love with it. I was moved up a year and played with older girls; I felt that meant I was doing a good job.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m an athletic goalie. I love jumping out of the crease and getting interceptions on passes. I\u2019m a big fan of throwing the ball 30 yards to get the ball from the defensive end to our offense so they can get a fast break against the other team\u2019s defense.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Photo
Lacrosse goaltender Hailey Wexler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was recruited by TCNJ and felt it was the best choice for me. I liked the history of the program and all the national championships they have won. TCNJ offers a kinesiology and health sciences major, which is what I wanted.<\/span><\/p>\n

The goalie coach, Bob Henderson, was a big factor, too. He\u2019s the goalie guru in Central Jersey. A lot of schools don\u2019t have goalie coaches. When I was looking at colleges, I wondered, \u201cHow am I going to get better if I don\u2019t have a goalie coach?\u201d He\u2019s able to point out the smallest things: critiquing your stance, how you\u2019re stepping to the ball, making sure your angles are proper.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our head coach, Sharon Pfluger, has been amazing. She cares about us as athletes and as people. Everything we learn sets us up to be successful in life.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a fifth-year senior. I had the most amazing goalie partner, All-American Julia Charest, for four years. The plan is that I\u2019m the starting goalie this year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The best part of being a goalie is when you make a big save and everyone cheers. The hardest thing is that you\u2019re the last line of defense. There are always going to be people that blame you for losing a game or allowing a goal. I learned early on in my career to ignore that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At TCNJ, senior kinesiology majors are required to do a 400-hour internship. Mine was in the athletic training room. I got to interact with our athletes, see their injuries, and help them get better.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I want to coach both hockey and lacrosse. I\u2019ve coached summer lacrosse in Princeton for the past two years. Coaching young goalies is fun. I get to teach my style of play to kids in middle and high school. You get to make mini versions of yourself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photos: Hannah Yoon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not much gets past TCNJ\u2019s women\u2019s lacrosse goalie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":351,"featured_media":13481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lions-roar"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/351"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13472"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13589,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13472\/revisions\/13589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}