Park girls lacrosse played Benilde-St. Margeret’s away May 22, and battled hard all game, scoring two goals in the second half, which did a lot to bring more energy to the team after a difficult first two quarters back to back. Park lost to Benilde with a final score of 2-14. The scorers of the goals were sophomore Lola Grim and senior captain Ailish Fitzpatrick.
Junior varsity coach Alexander Polk said Park struggled during the game. He said Benilde was a difficult opponent, but this experience was a takeaway they could bring into future games.
“In reality, not our best performance. Benilde was actively really, really good. I think a lot of games in the past, we’ve played up to our competition, but I don’t think we necessarily did that with this game,” Polk said. “Still, I think it’s a learning experience, and we can use that to prepare for our next game against Breck next week.”
Senior and captain Norah Robertson said the team did a lot physically to prepare for this game, as well as mental preparation before the game and during halftime to refocus during the game.
“Our coaches watched some of the film of their team, and we took that into our practice, to practice how to play with their gameplay. We hoped to use it tonight and just have a lot of possession,” Robertson said. “Our pregame huddle helped us a lot to prepare mentally, but also at halftime, we all took a breath and understood what each other needed, and that helped us as a team.”
Senior Tamara Smith said their practices leading up to the game were focused on how to specifically stop this Benilde team, and a lot of their training paid off in the game.
“Our coaches set up different practices so that we could face off against them evenly. (We practiced) wrap and cutting drills that helped us a lot today. We also made a play according to them, which was really nice, so that we could create some disturbance on their defense,” Smith said.
Polk said even if Park didn’t have their best performance of the season, they didn’t give up and kept playing hard until the final buzzer, something that he said he admires.
“There was an acknowledgement and a recognition that they are a very strong team, but we didn’t give up, which I appreciate,” Polk said. “We didn’t just put our heads down, we fought through the rest of the game — there was no quit. There is a desire to do better and improve, which is really good.”
Smith said the biggest takeaway she had from playing a difficult opponent is that sometimes the team can get into a negative mindset. She said in the future if they want to succeed, they need to be able to keep battling.
“The hardest thing was team morale. We get down on ourselves sometimes when we’re playing hard opponents that we know very well, but it was really great to see us fight through that adversity,” Smith said.
Robertson said with sections happening next week, the team has to work hard in the practices leading up to their first game, and must be mentally prepared as well.
“This weekend we’ll have to practice our stick skills and work on our speed, and just (focus) on staying sharp mentally and finishing the season strong,” Robertson said.
Smith said the team’s goals are to be able to perform in sections and pull themselves together mentally during high-pressure situations, as well as keep supporting each other to bring out the most out of the team’s potential.
“(Our focus is) just sections and keeping up team cohesiveness and team spirit. This game really showed us that we are able to come together in the midst of tough games and understand what each other needs in the game,” Smith said.
Polk said it’s important for the team to be able to rely on each other, especially during difficult games, and be able to individually stand out and use teamwork at the same time.
“We need to think about always trusting each other and trusting ourselves. I’m not necessarily going to say that’s our biggest challenge, but I think that’s something that’s important to a group that needs to play as one,” Polk said. “It’s sometimes easy to play as an individual, or to play just as a team (so) we’ve got to find that good balance of both playing as an individual trying to make something happen, but also recognizing that there are other people on their team who can also contribute.”
Park plays their first section game against Breck at 6 p.m. May 27 at home.