Junior team captain contributes skill and dedication

When Julia Vita began playing lacrosse four years ago, she did so because she didn’t have a spring sport and wanted to stay active. After being placed on the varsity team as a starter, she discovered her love for the sport and her fellow teammates.

Vita, now a junior, is a co-captain and starting midfield for the team.

According to Vita, playing good lacrosse is not a result of just strength and speed, but stick and ball handling. To improve her own stick skills, footwork and agility, Vita often carves out 20 minutes of her day after practice to  watch college-level lacrosse at Stanford or even on TV and online, so that she can  learn and apply techniques used by college-level players.

“Lacrosse takes a lot of dedication to try and get better and constantly challenge yourself,” Vita said.

Additionally, Vita hopes to improve the team’s chemistry by working with her fellow captains, seniors Erin Norris, Anne Rollinson and Talia Clement. The girls plan to do more activities outside of practice to help reduce the number of cliques within the team.

“I love working with [Vita] because she is so naturally athletic and talented, but she also works really hard to improve her skills,” Rollinson said. “She's very good at leading by example.”

This year, the varsity team roster consists of nine seniors, five juniors and seven sophomores. With a relatively small roster and young team, Vita said it could be difficult to make playoffs.

Nonetheless, Vita is looking forward to the upcoming games, bonding with her teammates and finding cohesion in their playing.

“Last year, half the team was sophomores, and since many upperclassmen didn't come back to play this year, it's like that again. But we have great coaches and a strong starting lineup so I have high hopes,” Vita said. “Once we start playing together and getting comfortable with each other I think we'll go far."

Vita hopes to continue playing lacrosse in college and perhaps professionally. She is currently going through the recruiting process to play in college, and her top targets are the University of Colorado, Oregon State and San Diego State.

The girls will be playing rival Los Gatos on their first De Anza league game on March 23.