G-lax hopes to cash in on hard work
By Gwen Diamond

  The varsity girls lacrosse team is seeded second and is now heading into the playoffs with a fantastic record and plenty of confidence that they will do well through the rest of the season.
  Lacrosse may not have been a very popular sport at locally or even in the Midwest ten years ago, but it is growing at New Trier each year. In fact, according to junior Laura Gotaas, this year another freshman team was added to the program so that there are now two freshman teams, a freshman A team and a freshman B team.
  According to senior captain Caroline Zent, tryouts for lacrosse were at the end of February. The team’s first game was on March 16 and the state championship is May 24. Since the team is seeded second right now, they feel pretty confident they will make it to the state championship.
  According to senior Caroline Van Schaack, the varsity team graduated 16 seniors at the end of last year. Considering those losses, the team has been doing exceptionally well. The coaches thought this would be a year to rebuild the program but the team became successful starting at the very beginning of the season when they won their first eight games.
  “In the beginning we had really strong chemistry and we played really well,” Gotaas said. “We started off undefeated and we have only lost one game within the state.”
  The only game that the Varsity team lost in Illinois was against Loyola on May 8. The score at the end of the game was 16-7 and it was a very disappointing loss for New Trier.
  “I think that we can attribute the loss to our lack of transitional skills. We didn’t really pass the ball well; we didn’t get it up the field for a pass and we couldn’t settle it a lot,” Zent said. “They just outplayed us, but now we know what things we need to work on, so we’re just taking every practice that we have to work on those points so that when we meet them again we won’t make the same mistakes.”
  The team members agree that Loyola is New Trier’s toughest competitor and the team that they all really want to beat because of their long-standing rivalry. Earlier in the season on April 18, the varsity team beat Loyola in overtime by a score of 10-8. Loyola is now seeded number one, right ahead of New Trier.
  “Loyola is always really competitive; they have a very competitive program and they are always really good. Hopefully we will face them again in the state finals,” Van Schaack said.
  This week the team is starting its push towards the state title in the postseason. Zent said that in the beginning of the playoffs, New Trier plays teams that are ranked significantly below them. The team is going to use the games this week as “warm-up games” to get ready for more challenging games later on.
  Van Schaack said that the team does not know who they will be playing this week, because it will depend which teams won two recent games. The girls lacrosse team has not yet received the results of those games.
  “These next two games should be fairly easy games so hopefully they will get our confidence back up and we can look forward to the semifinal and final games,” Van Schaack said.
   According to many team members, the team chemistry is great and even better than in years before.
  “This year I think we have had the best team chemistry out of all the years that I’ve been on the varsity team,” Zent said. “I think [the team chemistry] says a lot about our success and we can definitely attribute how we play together and how we practice together to how well we do on the field.”
  The team can also attribute their success to the hard work they put in at every practice. According to Zent, the team practices every day except for Sundays for about 2 hours. Usually, the team goes outside to practice, but sometimes they go inside first to watch game film.
  “We are doing a lot better than we anticipated and even better than we did last year, so I think everyone is really excited and we are hoping to win state,” Van Schaack said.