MONICA YEAKEL
Monica Yeakel is the owner and director of Diamonds Lacrosse Club with over 15 years of coaching experience. She is a 2009 inductee into the US Lacrosse Hall of Fame, Greater Baltimore Chapter.
Yeakel, who was known during her playing days at Loyola College as Monica DiCandilo, earned IWLCA All-America First Team honors as a defender in 1994 and graduated from the college with a bachelor of arts in elementary education degree that year.
She was a four-year letterwinner and starter at Loyola, helping the Greyhounds to a 47-20 record from 1990-1994. Loyola won the CAA championship and advanced to the National Collegiate Semifinals in 1990 and 1994.
After graduation, Yeakel was an assistant coach at Evergreen from 1994-1996. She then moved across Baltimore to become the head coach at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.
She led the Retrievers' program from 1997-2005, amassing a career record of 78-73 (.517).
Yeakel led UMBC to the NCAA Tournament twice, guided the Retrievers to five Northeast Conference Championships and the program's first-ever NCAA Division I Top-20 ranking.
She took a team that finished 4-11 in 1996 and led them to the NEC title two years later. She was twice named the Northeast Conference Coach of the Year. The Retrievers set a school Division I record for wins in a season with 12 in 1999 and 2002.
She is currently the Varsity Coach at the St. Paul's School for Girls. She serves on the board for the Greater Baltimore Chapter of US Lacrosse and runs an indoor lacrosse league for Tyker, Lightning and Midget age groups.
She is married to Chris Yeakel. The couple has two children, Luke, 7, and Maxine, 3, and live in Timonium, Md.
MIKE FAITH
Mike Faith, a 2000 alumnus of Salisbury University with a B.S. in health fitness, has been the head women's lacrosse coach at Elizabethtown since the spring of 2005.
By 2007, he had transformed the program into one of the powerhouses of the Middle Atlantic Conference. The Blue Jays posted a best-ever 13-4 overall record in 2007 and went 10-0 in their MAC regular-season schedule. After the season, Faith was named the conference's Coach of the Year, while a record total of six Blue Jays earned All-MAC honors and Katie Foley '09 became the first Etown player ever to be named to the IWLCA All-Metro Region First Team as well as the MAC Player of the Year. Katie Caprinolo '10 was also the first Blue Jay named the MAC Rookie of the Year.
Faith arrived at Elizabethtown after serving as the First Assistant Coach with the women's lacrosse program at NCAA Division I University of Maryland-Baltimore County, which he helped lead to its first-ever NCAA tournament appearances in the 2002 and 2003 seasons.
Prior to that, Faith was an assistant women's lacrosse coach and the offensive coordinator at the University of Richmond in 2001, and he was also a volunteer assistant women's lacrosse coach at his alma mater of Salisbury University in the fall of 1999 and in early 2000.
Faith, who was an NCAA Division III First Team All-American and men's lacrosse team captain at Salisbury, got his start in coaching women's lacrosse at James M. Bennett High School in Salisbury, MD in 1999 and 2000. “The team needed an assistant coach,” Faith explained, “and I learned the rules and took it from there. It made me learn to coach the way I want to coach.” The experience, like his stints as an assistant coach elsewhere, proved successful, as he helped guide the team to the Regional Quarterfinals both years and set the school record for best overall season.