399 wins and (she's not) counting

"Nope. No, no, no. I don't want to talk about it."

But, 400 wins - must make you a little nostalgic, right?

"You know . . . I honestly hate talking about it," Moorestown girls' lacrosse coach Deanna Knobloch said.

Those sentiments, seemingly deep and layered, were confirmed by Knobloch's husband and longtime assistant coach, K.C.

"I'll bet you somewhere in the recesses of her mind, she knows about it," he said. "But, no, she's certainly not thinking about it. It doesn't mean that much to her. It's always the next game that's important to her."

With the Quakers' first win this season - and if history is any indication, it won't take long to record - Deanna Knobloch will notch her 400th career victory. She enters her 21st year as head coach of Moorestown, which opens Saturday against Strath Haven (Pa.), with a 399-29-4 record.

Twenty-one years of unprecedented success, as a program representing a small public school in a small South Jersey town. Leading a program that has become a nationally recognized juggernaut, a factory churning out wins, state titles, and scholarship athletes.

But Knobloch prefers to talk about the present and a team once again poised for a run at a Tournament of Champions title. The Quakers are once again star-studded, with nine seniors set to play at the next level.

"I've been lucky over the last 21 years," Knobloch said. "But one of the reasons I find it difficult to speak about [the 400th win] is because I've never felt like I've done this by myself. I could never have done this alone. I've had amazing assistant coaches, amazing players.

"I can't say that I'm not proud of the wins. But I feel like I can't take credit because they're not all mine. So much, by so many people, made these wins happen."

One of the most striking aspects of Knobloch's tenure is the culture that has grown around the program. Year after year, the team is populated with athletes who grew up wanting to play for Moorestown girls' lacrosse.

"When kids are in fourth or fifth grade, they want to be a part of the next team that vies for a Tournament of Champions title," K.C. Knobloch said. "We've always talked about building a program that feeds on itself. And that's one of the things we're most proud of.

"We're not a private school. We can't recruit - we're a little town - but it doesn't matter. We've established a program that's based on high standards and expectations, and people want to be a part of that. And Deanna is the matriarch."

It's those incredibly high standards that, in a way, make it impossible for Deanna Knobloch to dwell on all she has accomplished. For 21 years, she has headed a program that refuses to take its foot off the gas.

The ride started when Knobloch was 22 years old, taking over for Lynn Schilling, her mentor and the coach she played for at Moorestown. Since then, Knobloch said, it hasn't slowed down.

"There were high expectations when I started," said Knobloch, who took over Moorestown fresh off a playing career at The College of New Jersey. "It's always been intense since the minute I got here. I took over a highly successful program. Teams have changed, outcomes have changed, but the ultimate goal has always been to win."

Of course, there was a 10-year span in which outcomes didn't change much at all. From 2000-09, Moorestown ran up a 228-game, in-state winning streak, including 10 straight T of C titles.

And it's true: Knobloch isn't responsible for all of that success.

But it's safe to say, at the very least, that she was one of the catalysts, refusing to let the program lose momentum or to settle for anything less than greatness.

"Before every game, she's the one motivating us. She's the face of the program. She's the reason why everyone is so intense in this program," senior midfielder Stephanie Toy said.

"At first, when you're a freshman, you're almost afraid of it. But you start to realize that all of the passion she has is really what drives the program."

Toy, a Notre Dame recruit, is a captain of yet another crop of highly skilled, highly motivated players. The Quakers return most of the team that lost last year's Tournament of Champions title game, by one goal, to Ridgewood.

It was an extremely successful season, to be sure, but not quite what Moorestown was seeking.

"We've had such an intense preseason," said senior midfielder Haleigh Dalmass, a Southern California recruit. "Everybody just wants to do whatever it takes to get that TOC title. That's really our only goal."

For Knobloch, it's that simple. It's really not worth talking about any other milestone. It would only distract from the only one that has ever really mattered.

"Let's get back to that final game, and let's win it," she said.