It doesn’t happen every day at practice, but it happens often enough that Shea Panzik has come to expect it.
When the Manhasset field hockey team is perhaps acting too tense, or having a lackluster performance on the field, the team’s best player will morph into a Columbian-born singing superstar.
That’s right: Senior Lily Klumszko will channel her inner Shakira, and start shaking her hips and swaying to the beat.
“She does a great Shakira impression,” Panzik revealed with a laugh. “She sings “Hips Don’t Lie” and she does Shakira’s voice and her movements and the whole thing and it’s hilarious.
“She just makes practices and everything else so much fun.”
Klimuszko, who shares a hair color with Shakira but not much else, does her most important work on the field. The senior forward had a stellar 2021 season for the Indians, with 11 goals and four assists, and this fall has continued to excel.
She has tallied five goals and nine assists in 13 games, as Manhasset has rolled to a 12-1 record in search of a county and state title.
“She’s adjusted her game this year so well because we’ve asked her to be more of a facilitator,” said head coach Steve Sproul. “She’s just gotten better and better and she knows how to find her teammates in the right spots.”
Klimuszko has been a starter for four seasons for Manhasset and stamped her name in school lore by scoring the winning goal in the county championship game as a sophomore in April 2021, the Indians’ first county crown in nine years.
For Klimuszko, this season has been special not just because Manhasset has been winning (they almost always have in field hockey) but because her new role in her final season has fit her so well.
Klimuszko’s love of field hockey came early; her sister Maggie, older by six years, is a former Manhasset star who taught Lily the game.
“I was the kid tagging along asking everyone to play with me,” Lily said. “I just remember Maggie would always want me to help her practice, and she taught me so much of what I know now, and that helped me get good for my age when I was younger.”
For Klimuszko, what drives her is the desire to please, whether it’s teachers, friends or her parents, Louise and Peter.
“I don’t ever want to disappoint people; I just like making them proud,” she said. “Whatever I do, if I’m in the newspaper or I’ve done some accomplishments, what makes me feel good is making my parents proud.”
When Klimuszko started on varsity as a freshman, she said she was timid but was always asking the older players “what can I do better in that situation next time?”
Clearly, they taught her well, because now the Indians are cruising toward a likely Class B championship game rematch on Halloween with Garden City, who topped Manhasset last year.
The two teams have split two games this fall, including a Garden City shootout win on Oct. 19.
