Most people have no idea that Exchange students can play high school sports and even if they do, they would never know whether an athlete lives in the US or is Visiting for one short school year. Well, an Athlete we have here at HSE who is an exchange student is Margherita Panerai from Florence, Italy. Panerai was on the JV Blue girl’s lacrosse team. Panerai said “my host family hosted an exchange student from Germany last year, Feli and she played lacrosse. That’s the first reason why I wanted to try because she said it was so fun. And it was a new sport for me and looked so interesting”.

Panerai said when she goes back to Italy that she would like to continue to play lacrosse if she can. While on the team Panerai said she “Learned how important it is to enjoy every single moment because time passes to quickly, and how to try to have as much fun and experience as possible”. Even though Panerai was only here for two short semesters she made many friends met so many people that she’ll never forget. She made such an impact to the lacrosse team and to many other people.

Since Panerai had never played lacrosse before she had to start at the bottom, but she said, “my teammates helped me a lot to learn the basics of playing lacrosse since I had never played before, and they gave me a lot of advice”. Most people would not be able to join a high school team right when they start playing a sport but that was no issue for Panerai. She played on the JV blue team even while still learning how to play and the rules of the game.