The unusual launch of an All-American

Hannah-Gray Petro’s journey to the University of Vermont was, more or less, launched from a trampoline.

The junior at Glacier High School was in middle school and just starting to really get into the sport of lacrosse when she blew up her left elbow. 

“End of eighth grade year I had a fall off a trampoline,” she said. “I’m left hand-dominant, which was the side I used the stick on. A nerve had to be moved. 

“It was hard in the moment but was probably one of the best things that happened to me. I really started working on my right side.” 

Last summer, playing for the Tenacity Project national team, Petro’s skill and play resulted in her earning All-American status from USA Lacrosse. And so it is that a bit of personal tragedy had a silver lining. 

“She used that time to really develop her stick skills,” her mom, Joni Petro, said. 

The older Petro grew up loving lacrosse in Ohio and played it at the club level at Miami (Ohio). By 2001 she was coaching the sport; by 2016 she, her husband and their three daughters were in Kalispell. 

“I think the Northwest Sharpshooters’ boys program had just started,” she recalled. “Small valley, and we’re watching a game and somebody said, ‘Oh, you coached lacrosse? You should coach here.’  

“Before I knew it I was in front of a board being asked to start the girls program.” 

She got about 15 girls for that first team, from grades 2-4. “That little team of fourth-graders are now my juniors,” she said.  

One of them is her daughter, but the team casts a wide net: Flathead High, Glacier, Whitefish, Heritage Academy. Players have come in from Bigfork and Columbia Falls. 

There is plenty of skill besides Hannah-Gray. 

“One senior has opportunities,” said Coach Petro, who notes another former Sharpshooter, Kadence Rose, is playing at Midland (Neb.) University. “Four more juniors are weighing opportunities. Then we have some sophomores and freshmen who are thinking, ‘Wait, we could do this?’ ” 

Hannah-Gray — or Gray, as her mom calls her — is doing it. She visited Vermont and Niagara University, among others. Vermont, with Lake Champlain sitting right there, won out last October. 

“It reminds me of here a little,” Gray said of Burlington. “There’s a lake right in the middle of town.” 

High school season starts for the Sharpshooters in April. Petro will rejoin her Tenacity squad, which got her the East Coast exposure that landed the college interest, this summer. That will take her through the fall; then back to the Sharpshooters in the spring of 2026. 

“Our role locally is exposing kids to the game and getting them to have fun and fall in love with it,” said her mom. “We work on the fundamentals, and then if they decide to go to the next level, they’re prepared for it.” 

“It’s kind of crazy looking back,” Hannah-Gray Petro said. “Kind of been a whirlwind. When we moved here, there wasn’t even a girls program so it seemed like an impossible thing.” 

She’s thankful — for Tenacity coach Hillary Fratzke, for Timberline (Idaho) coach Lauren Schmidt, and for all those Sharpshooters, who now number 73 girls from grades k-8 and 20 at the high school level. 

“Shout out to my teammates,” said Gray. “I would never have had the opportunity to compete on the East Coast without them pushing me at practice every day.” 

Fritz Neighbor can be reached at 758-4463 or at fneighbor@dailyinterlake.com.