Well established as the primary recreational leagues for field hockey and lacrosse in Charlottesville, the Albemarle Girls Field Hockey League (AGFHL) and Albemarle Girls Lacrosse League (AGLL) are now run by Focus Field Hockey.

The collaboration between AGFHL/AGLL and Focus will see both groups be "stronger together" by marrying a long-running recreational league with top-quality instruction, coach education and guidance from Focus. 

The leagues will be coordinated by Focus director Kristen McCann, a former USA national team field hockey player, Focus coaching director Alan Good - a USA Field Hockey coach educator and high performance coach - and Peggy Williams, the 1998 NCAA Woman of the Year who was a two-sport athlete at the University of Virginia. Peggy is a long-standing member of the field hockey and lacrosse communities and joins Focus as director of rec programming for lacrosse and assistant rec director for field hockey.

Focus's mission for these leagues is to provide not just an opportunity for the girls of Albemarle county to play both sports, but to create instructional rec leagues. This means providing coaches with a high-quality curriculum and ongoing coach education, training and evaluation of umpires, and quality standards around communication and administration. We recognize that the standard "recreation" model leaves some things to be desired and we aim to create an instructional league that remains fun and supportive but also offers more challenge.

We hope to see more of the local athletes playing in both leagues as improvements are made. Athletes will have opportunities to lead and to be challenged in the new instructional rec model while also being certain that they will have the opportunity to play each gameday. In striving to make the leagues welcoming and inclusive, Focus has financial assistance available for those who need it.

The AGFHL/AGLL was established in 1980 by Linda Gillooly Perriello and ran for the past 14 years by her daughter-in-law Maureen Perriello, with the duo providing four decades of youth sports opportunities between them.

Both programs provide recreational sports opportunities every fall (field hockey) and spring (lacrosse) via a competitive program over 6-8 weeks, culminating in a finals weekend. Players from 1st-8th grade compete in the field hockey league, with 5th-8th graders participating in the lacrosse equivalent.