Lacrosse Season Wrap-up

Beginning as an exciting new experiment for Samo athletics, Lacrosse now ends it’s season as a triumphant success for the sports department.  With both the boys’ and girls’ lacrosse teams making slow but sure progress, this year’s lacrosse teams thrived, even though many competing players were new to the game.Although the girls lost the majority of their games this season, as this was the first year of the program, they are still proud of their progress, especially considering the fact that they beat the Marlborough JV team 16-2 at their last home game.“It was really rewarding to have won,” Kara Blum (’15) said. “Before, we celebrated the smaller victories in a game, like holding a team at eight minutes, or getting the ball of the draw, but now we can celebrate in a bigger way.”According to coach Laura Cavallo, the team’s victory reflects the girls’ commitment to the team and desire to win.“Our one goal for this year was to win at least one game, and we’ve finally done it,” Cavallo said. “I hope we’ll be able to win more next year, as we become more and more skillful.”According to many teammates, this season was less about winning, and more about understanding the sport and coming together as team. Because Samo introduced lacrosse this year, most of the players had never played the game in their lives.  Some joined to be a part of a team, while others joined as a way to be active and involve themselves in a less popular sport.Meanwhile, the boys ended their first season as an official Samo sport with the record of 3-9 under the guidance of coach Benjamin Keiser. Throughout the season, the boys team was faced with the same inexperience and unfamiliarity as their female counterparts.“In our first year of being a CIF Sport, the boys flourished and grew as individuals, but more importantly, they grew as a team,” Keiser said. “We are a very young team with 20 freshman and only 4 players who had any high school playing experience.”Because of the largely inexperienced team, this season was primarily meant to eliminate the learning curve within the players.Varsity lacrosse player Ryan Lykins (’14) is proud of the freshmen on the team for stepping up, especially when they won in overtime against El Segundo without the two senior captains.“They grew immensely for having a large majority of the team playing high school lacrosse for the first time,” Lykins said. “They should have at least had a year or two of JV under their belts, but they were thrown into a very competitive varsity conference and league and grew profoundly, mostly due to this.”Just like Cavallo, Lykins has high hopes for the team’s future.“I see a very bright future for [Samo] lacrosse,” Lykins said. “There is a ridiculous amount of potential and overall talent in a lot of the kids on the team, and I am very excited to see them grow over years to come.”osherman@thesamohi.com