[media-credit id=42 align=”aligncenter” width=”300″][/media-credit]Carlmont’s lacrosse team started their second season at the beginning of February.
Though the team had a rough first season last year, winning only one out of the 11 games, the players are determined to start the new year with a stronger foot forward.
In preparation for the upcoming season, the coaches made the players go through intense try-outs followed by early morning practices, where the boys had to wake up at 5:30 a.m. in order to get there on time. Junior Connor Swanson, last year’s team captain, said, “We get up really early and then put full effort into our practice.”
Practices were held from 6:00 a.m. until 7:30 a.m. before school, which gave the players 20 minutes to shower and change before classes started.
Due to the fact that it was dark at six in the morning, the players began their practices in the gym, working on their agility until it became light enough outside so that they were able play on the field.
However, on March 12, they started to have afternoon practices at around 5:30 p.m., after track finishes their practice.
Sleep is not the only thing the lacrosse team has to give up; the equipment and the sport itself costs a lot of money.
When asked, junior Shane Rebholtz said that for school the players are required to pay $350, not including personal items, such as a stick, gloves and pads.
Rebholtz said that he paid more for his $100 gloves, $20 for his pads, and $130 for his stick, an overall extra of $250.
Carlmont also added a frosh-soph lacrosse team this year in addition to varsity. The freshman and sophomores are very excited for their first season, as the team has more experienced players that add to the team’s games.
Frosh-soph’s team captains include sophomores Silas Pang and Henson Kwok, and freshman Cole Lotti, who were chosen by the lacrosse coach based on self-improvement.
The team had their first non-league game on Feb. 27 against Palo Alto High School, but frosh-soph lost 14 to 4, and Varsity also lost 12-1.
According to Kwok, a sophomore on frosh-soph, “The first half was going good, but then during the second half, we started getting our butts kicked. Part of the problem was that we didn’t have enough subs, so we were getting really tired.”
One thing that the frosh-soph players can all agree on is the fact that playing together really let them see how everyone worked as a team and what their biggest team improvements needed to be.
Kwok also thinks that something they really need to work on is motivation and enthusiasm within the team environment.
The first two teams that Carlmont lacrosse played against were in a higher division and neither game counted towards their actual record. In the actual season, varsity currently has a 1-0 record after beating Leland on March 8.
Junior K.C. Montgomery commented, “It’s not our first year, so I hope we win more than one game.”
Swanson also has higher expectations for this year, as he stated, “This year will be better because there are more people who are more experienced.”
The team continues to keep their spirits up, train diligently and hope for a better year the second time around.