As the sun began to set April 30 at Chanhassen high school, senior captain Katherine Gage walked out of the game proud of her team despite the 17-0 loss.

“I think that the score doesn’t reflect how we played,” Gage said. “We definitely improved as a team a whole lot and we used everything that we’ve practiced in practices on the field.”

After the junior varsity team lost 12-0 to Chanhassen, assistant head coach Christine Patino hopes the team can build on what it is already doing in order to win.

“Being able to pick up what the other team was doing right away defensively and offensively (was good),” Patino said. 

According to Gage the flexibility of her teammates and encouragement from her coaches helped her stay optimistic throughout the game. 

“The way that we took instruction from our coaches and each other and then kept applying it was really good,” Gage said. “You never really know what the other team is going to do until you’re playing them so you just have to adapt when you’re in it.”

Freshman attack Margaux Pollock said she and other girls tried to help the defense as much as possible. 

“(The defense) started to pick up on what Chanhassen was doing with their pics and with their cuts, but our attack unfortunately just didn’t really get the ball that much so we didn’t really have much stuff that we could have done,” Pollock said. “But we were there mentally for our team.” 

In the coming games, Patino said hewants the team to be more aggressive when attacking.

“Making sure that we’re taking opportunities to shoot and just having that confidence in ourselves (is important),” Patino said.

Although communication was strong throughout the game for both the defense and the attack,  Pollock said that moving forward the team still has improvements to make. 

“Our ground balls are still a little rusty,” Pollock said. “Just getting in there and being more aggressive with the ball and making sure that you challenge the ball to go and be able to get that shot.”

The next girls’ varsity lacrosse game will be at 6:00 p.m. May 4 against Chaska at home.