Lacrosse ends with hope for improvement next year

Girls’ lacrosse players had their senior day game on May 3 against Pioneer High. Dressing up as “Super Mario Bros.” characters during the day, the underclassmen gave speeches and roses to their graduating seniors during the pre-game ceremony.

The team started out strong, leading by as many as four points in the first half. However, Pioneer rallied toward the end of the game, completing a comeback that ended in an overtime loss for Saratoga, 14-10.

“Pioneer was a heart-breaking game,” head coach Merryl Geisse said. “A skill we will work on next year is playing from start to finish of the game giving 100 percent each second.”

The loss to Pioneer epitomized a season of tough breaks and narrow defeats. The team ended its season 2-14 overall (2-10 in league) but remains hopeful for next season.

“I do not think the scores of this season reflected the team’s true abilities,” Geisse said. “For next year I think one of the biggest skills that I will have to work on is confidence. The team is amazing and I know once the girls gain a little bit more confidence they will be unstoppable.”

Sophomore low defensive wing Tiffany Zai believes the team improved a lot on transitions and draws, two crucial aspects of securing a win.

“We didn’t win every game, but we tried our best,” Zai said. “For next year we just need to make sure we communicate effectively.”

Geisse agrees with Zai that the team improved, especially on transitions and draws.

“I thought that the season went really well,” Geisse said. “All the girls vastly improved their lacrosse skills from the beginning to the end of the season. Not only did the girls improve individually, the girls improved as a team. By the end of the season everyone was working together as one fluid team in transitions to offense and defense.”

Senior attack wing Sarah Blegen thought it was a challenging season. She attributes the difficulty to having a relatively new lacrosse program and girls of different ages and skill sets.

“I think that each girl put a lot of of hard work into our team and into improving,” Blegen said. ”By the end of the season, we were really starting to mesh and play well. Each girl came out of the season with improved ball handing and stick skills, and with improved confidence.”

The team will need underclassmen to step up and fill the voids left by the current seniors, who dominated the team awards. Blegen won the Coach’s Award, captain defense wing Kat Nobles won Most Outstanding Defense Player, high attack wing Ellen Scott won Most Outstanding Offense Player and captain attack wing Vanessa Block won Most Valuable Player.

Blegen is sad that her lacrosse years at Saratoga are coming to a close.
“My wishes for next year’s team are just that they work to hard to improve the lacrosse program even more,” said Blegen. “And that they play with the same passion that I think all the seniors this year played with.”