3/26 – Andover: 16, Central Catholic: 2
Girls Lacrosse faced Central Catholic in a scrimmage on March 27 at home, triumphing in a dominant victory. The team demonstrated strong unity through their performance and set the tone for its upcoming regular season.
Gracynn Hartley ’27 described the team’s season goal of promoting unity and her hopes to contribute to such efforts.
“Personally, I want to be there for my teammates and help bring [the team] together as a big community because that’s what it really is. I think that’s also one of the big ideas for the team. Obviously, a huge goal is to win, but what it really comes down to is the family that we create there and the community,” said Hartley.
According to Hartley, the team worked to refine their skills together during preseason in its spring training trip while getting to know each other. Hartley described how the team built a community over preseason.
“The most important thing that we worked on was having a community and being able to work together as a team. I think that’s really come together because everyone’s put in so much of an effort to get to know each other and better each other. That’s really what a team needs, is having healthy competition to better each other. That’s a really important step that everyone took. Another thing everyone’s worked on is their skills and harnessing what they needed to work on,” said Hartley.
During the team’s spring training trip, Autumn Christian ’27 recounted a preseason tradition that helped build team spirit through games.
“We do this [activity] every spring break called ‘Minute to Win it,’ and it’s just little challenges you take on with other people in your grade. It’s fun. I did one where you were supposed to put a popsicle stick in your mouth and try to stack dice on it. So they were just little games meant to get people, either in your grade or on your team, active and having fun,” said Christian.
Along with these team bonding activities, having an experienced core group of returning players could provide a source of leadership for the recently finalized roster. Head Coach Heidi Wall ’94 highlighted various returning players.
“Our captains are all great leaders on the team, we have Lauren Herlihy ’25, Necia Smith ’25, and Charley Drouin ’25. And then we have a new player, who is a goalie, Maddie Greenwood ’26, who has great energy and leadership in the defensive end. Also, returning on defense, we have some great leadership from Quiana Bell ’26, Lucy Parker ’26, Lola Augirre ’26, and Peyton Kennedy ’26. They represent a great base for returning leadership in the defensive end,” said Wall.
Following its initial victory, the team hopes for further improvements in its upcoming game against Noble and Greenough (Nobles) on April 4. With a week of training before the next match, Coach Wall aims to improve team chemistry and unity to propel the team into a successful season.
Wall said, “We are looking to continue to raise the level of play. We are coming off of an extremely successful season last year, and we have some teams who we are incredibly excited to be able to compete against this year. Nobles is coming up next week. It’s always a really challenging game, but we are feeling confident in our abilities to show up. In general, we are looking forward to performing our best, and continuing to raise the competition level, and just being the best team that we can be.”
Girls Lacrosse will battle New Hampton on Saturday and Middlesex on Wednesday.
