The crowd goes wild as the buzzer sounds and the scoreboard lights up with the score 19-6, a win against Centreville High School on May 8. Beyond the wins, players cite the team’s developments and progress as keys to success.
Offense has been the focal point of improvement according to captain senior Haden Robertson. The new freshmen players entering the team brought new energy like Eli Miller, the second leading goal scorer.
“We have four freshmen who really stepped up,” Robertson said. “They’re already starting on varsity and contributing a lot, our team is doing better than I first expected.”
The team had worked through some obstacles regarding games with the record being 9-6 as of May 14. On April 24, they lost a close game against Oakton 11-12 in overtime. In order to improve, they went over the film of the game, analyzing mistakes they made and what they need to work on during practices.
“A lot of stuff we did was make a lot of mistakes when we were under pressure,” Robertson said. “There were also a lot of ground balls made and being too aggressive, so we worked on those to get better.”
Captain junior Will Zarybnisky, also had similar thoughts in areas that needed improvements after a game they lost. During the game against James Madison High School where they lost 1-16, he noticed some other aspects.
“Sometimes when we make mistakes, we kind of harp and keep thinking about them,” Zarybnisky said. “So those lead to bad mindsets when we should be focusing on the game.”
Though Zarybnisky wasn’t sure how well the team would work together with the younger teammates, he had confidence in them in the beginning of the season. His feelings were confirmed when the team won against Westfield High School 9-7.
“We’ve won lots of big games, since our school has had a history of losing to those teams,” Zarybnisky said. “We won against Westfield, one of our biggest district opponents so far.”
Even when they win a game, the team still goes over the film and finds parts where they could have played better. Senior Matthew Chu says that there is more to improving in weak areas other than just drilling.
“We do have a smaller team than the other schools,” Chu said. “So in order to win against them, we’re trying to work on the collaboration and communication aspect of this sport.”
The varsity boys lacrosse team had their first playoff game on May 13. They had their district tournament games from May 14 to May 19, with the Northern Region tournaments from May 22 to June 2.
“I felt pretty confident coming into the season and really motivated to keep playing with the guys,” Chu said. “We’ve really been doing the best we can.”
