Health & Fitness
Improvement is the Key for RBR Girls' Lax
Between lacrosse seasons, it's crucial that teams improve across the board, from their main goals to their stickwork. For RBR girls' lacrosse, improvement was the key to their success.
Many things can grow and change during the time between high school lacrosse seasons. Stick designs can change, teams design new socks (just watch a high school lacrosse game--the different socks and sticks that all the players have can sometimes be really fascinating), and in the words of head coach Ashley Schulte, so can the Red Bank Regional Buccaneers girls’ lacrosse team. “We had some tough games this season as we saw many good teams that had improved from last year.” The Bucs’ record of 9-6 this year showed how they have improved between two seasons, as well as how some other teams have improved along with the Bucs. To see how the Bucs have improved since last season, where the Bucs went 11-8, look at two of RBR’s games against Shore Regional High School from this season and last season. In the 2012 season, Shore won the meeting by a score of 16 to 5. This season, at a game that I attended, Red Bank had lowered the deficit by 10 goals, leaving Shore with an 8-7 win. Lacrosse is a game of improvement. When playing the game, you tell yourself to make your next pass, your next shot, or the way you defend that lighting-on-legs player during the next possession. At the end of a season, you know what you are going to have to do to improve next season. This year, the Bucs have played a smart and paced game with a good amount of passing around to find the perfect shot, a tempo that has worked for them when facing teams with tough defense. Working from the outside (often around the 12 meter arc) and eventually using a time advantage to move the ball inside the 8-meter arc for the best shot possible gave the Bucs key goals during the season. This type of play has been especially been beneficial to RBR junior midfielder Murphy Davis, who has scored a team-high 46 goals during the regular season. Senior midfielder Lauren Faherty is also key to the Bucs’ zone defense system, something that prevents chasing the opposition to the cage, as well as forcing teams to take shots farther away. The defense, however, is not alone. Sophomore goalie Mia Nelson, with 103 saves on the regular season and 265 career saves, has played a huge role in the team’s success and improvement this season. Even in a 16-10 loss on Friday in the state tournament to Northern Burlington, Nelson made ten saves and Davis provided four goals, showing how the Bucs have improved with their adjustment to playing teams outside of the Shore Conference.
One of the key words in any game of lacrosse that any coach or play will tell you is “improve”. Things change during the time between two seasons. Teams get better, they come in more prepared—they improve. Improvement is exactly what Schulte was glad to see this year. “My team has grown a lot over the course of the season and I am very proud of all the hard work they have put into improving,” she says. “We were caught off-guard with a few but luckily we were able to walk away from our regular season at 9-6.” Though this season has ended, expect nothing but more improvement from Lady Buc lacrosse next season.
