The girls’ lacrosse team opened up their season with a 13-3 win against Blair High School on Friday, March 21. The Cats wanted to start the season off strong, as shown with the dominant win over the Blazers.
“We have a really good team culture and I knew that whatever happened we would always be working our hardest, which made me really confident going into the first game,” senior captain Mallory Booth said.
The team was extremely excited to get into games this year and thrilled to showcase their new team. Many players like Booth and fellow senior captain Ginger Fishberg had to step up their leadership skills to get the team in the right shape for the beginning of the season.
“I’ve had to communicate with the team more and encourage people to step up more as captain.” Fishberg said. “Previous captains have taught me how to communicate effectively and motivate my teammates even more.”
With a new team this season the Cats were relying on new players to step up. Sophomore Julia Zucconi stepped up to take the opening draw and won it. While the team needed help from new starters they also relied on their backbone of the team and last year’s starters to win the game. Fishberg demonstrated this by scoring the first two goals of the season off an “iso” (1 on 1) against a Blair defender.
“We lost a lot of seniors from last year so some people had to step up and play positions they aren’t necessarily that comfortable in,” Booth said. “We have been practicing and learning new things and building good team chemistry to have a successful season.”
The Cats continued to show their dominance over the Devils in the second quarter, scoring the first seven goals to bring the score up to 7-0. Eventually the Cats early lead was shortened through three straight goals by the Blazers. The Cats soon stepped back up scoring another two goals before going into half winning 9-3.
Coming out of halftime the Cats sought to close out this game and get their first win of the season. Their big goal was to play shutdown defense, keep their lead and to add to it when they can, and that’s just what they did. The Cats scored more goals by a collection of players including seniors like Fishberg and Booth and freshman, Addy Mason, while also not allowing another goal defensively the rest of the game.
“Our team worked very well together on defense to shut down Blair’s offense. It was one of our first games playing together, but we communicated and listened to each other very well,” freshman Alina Macdermott said. “I tried focusing on playing aggressive but clean defense while capitalizing on their weaknesses.
For the Cat’s second week of the season, they must travel to Churchill to face a rival team on Monday, March 24. Then on a short week follow up with a second rivalry game at home March 26 against Whitman. The Cats hope to start this week off strong with a win against the Bulldogs, then get revenge against the Vikings for last year’s regional finals loss.
