Lacrosse is one of the oldest team sports in the United States. Originally, Native Americans in Canada called it “men hit a round object” and “the little war.” French Canadians later adopted it and gave it the name, la crosse, which means “game of the hooked stick.”
Last Saturday, the boys lacrosse team went into the season’s initial little war and secured their first win of the season, 13-3, against Colorado State University. Although it was only a scrimmage, it was the first action for the team this year, and the fan turnout was remarkable considering it was lightly snowing and only 20 degrees.
Hunter Henninger, a first-year on the team, attributed the team’s victory to their stellar offense. “We were very prepared offensively,” Henninger said. “We seemed to be in much better shape than they were, and they just couldn’t keep up with our constant possession of the ball.”
Head Coach Sean Woods had his team focusing on their patience and skill work during the practices leading up to the game. “We’ve been focusing on waiting for the right shot rather than just taking a lot of shots,” Woods said. “We know we’re skilled enough to have the ball and if we wait for a good shot to come up, we have a better chance of scoring.” This tactic worked well for junior Eric Neumeyer, sophomore Austin Davie, and first-year Robert Stern, who scored more than half the teams’ goals combined.
Although they are a young team, Woods feels that there is a lot of talent in the group. “This year—more than every year I’ve been here—we are a lot more skilled,” Woods said. “The more skilled you are, the harder it is for the other team to take it away from you, even if they’re pressuring.”
First-year Jackson Kaplan was stoked on the big win. “This a great way to start the new season with a high scoring win. It will really give us good momentum going into the rest of the season,” Kaplan said.
Coach Woods agreed that starting off the season with the win creates good momentum for the team, but he believes there are other things to work on before their next game. “We need to play faster. Our energy was good and I think we wanted to play fast, but I just don’t think we’re used to doing it,” Woods said. “We need to practice faster, so on game day it shows a better product.” According to Woods, the pace of ball movement and footwork can be improved.
Woods says the team’s mental toughness is also going to have to step up, due to the number of challenging games on the road. The team will play their two toughest opponents, top-20 teams in the nation, on the road.
According to the coach, this means the older boys on the team will have to help the younger guys understand the importance of winning on the road, being physical and handling adversity and crowd noise, “We might lose a game on the road, but we have to handle that in a positive way and make sure it doesn’t affect how we react to future games. That will be huge. Although we’re a young team, the leadership we do have is good, and our seniors are really doing a good job to make our younger guys understand what we need to do to be great.”
As for the rest of the season, Woods says the team’s goal is to qualify for the tournament, so that they have a chance at winning a national championship. “There is only one team out of 224 Division III lacrosse teams that have won the championship,” said Woods. In the past five years, the team has made it to the tournament three times, but has never made it past the first round.
Kaplan hopes to advance further. “I know if we practice well and we show up on game days that there’s no stopping us from going far into the tournament this year.” Based on their first little war, the Tigers have begun a promising campaign.