By David Zheng
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This school’s men’s lacrosse team has been doing well this season and will play against Westfield at Westfield’s field tonight. The junior varsity game starts at 5:30 p.m. and the varsity game starts at 7:30 p.m.
“Westfield is usually a pretty tough opponent but I’m pretty sure that in past years we’ve beaten them handily,” Zane Anderson, JV attack and sophomore, said. “They’re one of our rivals, so we don’t take them lightly. It’s not like they’re on the same level as a State championship contender, so it’s always a big game, but not our biggest.”
“Westfield has some big wins so far this season, and appear to be a strong team,” Head Coach Brandon Burke said. “The Shamrocks are still looking for their first win against (this school’s) varsity team. This will likely be our toughest in-state competition to date. If our boys are not focused from the start it could be a tough game for us. The JV team will be looking to get back on track after a loss at home last year.”
The Westfield game is right before spring break, but Anderson said that the players will continue to be training hard during break. “We want to stay in shape like how we are right now, so we don’t have to backtrack after break,” Anderson said. “After break we want to keep going ahead instead of having to start back over from two weeks ago then keep getting better.”
Burke said the varsity team will be required to do individual workouts over break to maintain their conditioning and strength levels achieved so far. “(These workouts) will entail a combination of body weight workouts for strength, interval running for conditioning and wall ball workouts to maintain their stick skills,” Burke said. “This is important. A week and half off is enough to experience a notable setback, which can be tough to overcome. April will encompass some of our toughest opponents, so we have to be ready.”
According to Anderson, the team is going to be going hard after break and getting ready for the rest of the season. “The State championship is always one of the main goals, and we are definitely going to be a contender for that,” Anderson said. “Beating Culver is always a lofty goal and we always take it as seriously no matter how good they think they are and how good we think we are. Zionsville is also pretty tough, and beating Westfield is always a pretty solid goal. Our main focus right now though is going to State and bringing home a trophy this year.”
The varsity team has fallen just short of the State championship the past several years with a 1 or 2 goal loss in the semi-finals, according to Burke. “While there are several teams peaking this year, the Greyhounds should focus on making it back to the State championship game,” Burke said. “They’ll need to focus on taking each practice and game one day at a time. The team needs to take pride in getting better every day. The offense is being asked to not just score goals, but take better care of the ball to help control time of possession. The defense is being challenged to step up and become a more aggressive unit in both individual and team play. The team has to resolve these issues to be successful.”
“I just really want people to come to the games,” Anderson said. “All the games are fun to watch and it’d be really nice if we could just get some more fan support.”