For 20 or so girls, spring sports mean lacrosse. With tryouts finally out of the way, the girls are hoping for a successful season. The tryouts included lots of running, passing drills and some mini scrimmages.
Coach Casey Fletcher is ready for her second year of coaching. She’s hoping to take the girls to states, although they lost a valuable player, Carli Mangum. She has verbally committed to University of Florida and transferred to Bullis at the beginning of the second semester. “It is going to be hard without Carli but now that we have Paige Abid and Kendall Clark, we might be okay,” junior Avery Breen said.
Paige Abid is a freshman who plays lacrosse outside of school on MC Elite and is the only freshman on varsity. Kendall Clark is a sophomore who was on JV initially last year but got pulled up because of her incredible speed and skills. She made varsity this year and is ready to show her skills off.
On Mar. 7, the girls played their first scrimmage against Holy Cross and faced a tough loss of 20-1. The girls put up a good fight considering they did not practice as a team because it was a day after tryouts. The one goal was scored by junior Raeann Carpenter.
There was improvement seen at the girls’ second scrimmage at St. John’s on Mar. 9. The final score reflected the effort each of the 20 individual players put in and that was 13-3. The three goals were scored by senior Julia Stern and juniors Raeann Carpenter and Abby Hennasse.
The team is optimistic that the season will only improve from here after they work together to create better plays to get the ball down the field and maintain possession. They also need to work on better defense to ensure fewer balls going in the back of the net.
The season begins with a game against Walter Johnson on Friday, March 23 at 7:30 p.m.. The girls hope to start the season off with a win against the Wildcats. “I’m excited to see how this season plays out and I’m hopeful we will make it far this year if we really put in the work,” senior Jenna Traub said.
Olivia Kerben
Staff Writer