Finding a New Home

February 8, 2010

With the end of another week comes more progress for our inaugural team. Besides the constant improvement on the fundamentals, we expanded a bit as well. Joining our roster were Dana Harjus, Kassie Phillips, and Rachel Ferri. Out of the three, Dana’s the only one with prior lacrosse experience and has already made an impact in our lineup. Kassie and Rachel, though, are making huge strides and will definitely challenge those with experience for time on the field.

The focus of our team for the second week was defense—sliding, communication, doubles. The coaches are constantly stressing that defense isn’t about using a desperate, sloppy check but rather a strong body defense. Basically, our defensive goal is to capitalize on the errors of the attacking offense. This style makes me even more excited, because it means fewer shots on goal!

This coming week should prove to be more exciting. We’re less than 25 days away from our first game versus Manhatanville and finally we’ve been able to get on our home field at SUNY Purchase. Some of us were so excited that we would even go off-roading to get to practice! Breathing in the cold air wasn’t exactly easy, but for the most part we didn’t care. We finally made it—those pesky turf pebbles were finding their way into our cleats and ground balls didn’t bounce away wildly. I can confidently say that lacrosse is a sport made for the open air and not the gym.

Hopefully this week the snow will stay away so we can continue to practice and grow on the turf.