Teamwork and determination, according to boys? lacrosse coach Andrew Freeman, are the two things that the varsity team needs to work on if they want to see an improvement in their ongoing losing streak. Girls? varsity, on the other hand, has been experiencing both wins and losses in recent weeks. Both teams are keen to improve their performances in upcoming games.
In recent games against Yorktown High School on April 7 and South Lakes High School on April 9, boys? varsity lost 12-1 and 14-3, respectively. These results follow the downward trend boys? has been experiencing since their first game of the season, when they lost to Annandale High School 18-0 on March 16.
“All of the boys are willing and eager to do well,” Freeman said. “My only wish is that they would show the same determination at games that they do at practice.”
According to Freeman, one way that the team can bounce back from their negative trend is for the team to “simply start performing better at games.”
Some team members believe that the low scores are linked to the inexperience of new team members. “We have a lot of new kids on the team who are still a bit inexperienced, and we?re still having a hard time trying to get them integrated into the sport,” junior Matt McAloon said.
Others think the team needs to take practices more seriously in order to see a change from their recent performances.
“Heart is definitely not what we lack,” sophomore Neil Merrifield said. “It?s just that we need to start treating practices more seriously, because, after all, the purpose of practice is to simulate our next game.”
As opposed to the boys? team, girls? varsity has been experiencing a mix of wins and losses.
They beat J.E.B. Stuart High School 7-1 on March 18 and McLean High School 9-7 on April 5, and lost 15-8 against Langley High School on March 22 and 9-11 against Yorktown on April 7.
Neverthelessgirls? coach Nicholle Depaz is anticipating “a fierce comeback” in the next few games and assures that the team will “win its next four games games of the season.”
“We?ve been having a roller coaster trend [this] season,” Depaz said. “The team is
confident that we are going to be victorious in our upcoming games, though.”
Like Freeman, Depaz thinks that “the only remedy to improving our record is to start taking pratices more [seriously] and to start showing the same amount of effort and determination in games that we show in practice.”