by Colleen Yates ‘18

Girls’ varsity lacrosse team is looking forward to what should be another stellar season this spring. For the past two seasons, Coach Kelly Hughes has won the coach of the year award and the team has been named as one of the Girls’ Lacrosse 2017 All County/All Division Teams. The Warriors also received an overall best sportsmanship award for the MCPS girls’lacrosse tournament.

The captains for the coming season are seniors Emily St. Laurent and Anna Lippy, and juniors Emma Eustace and Abbey Rose. Eustace says she has high hopes for the coming season, adding that last year the team made it a lot further than most people thought they would. “We only lost two defensive starters and one offensive starter [to graduation], so I think that we will probably still be very strong this year and hopefully even be able to get back to state semis,” said Eustace, who has been on varsity since her freshman year.

Both of the junior captains have already committed to colleges with Rose heading to Elon College and Eustace to High Point University, both in North Carolina. Juniors Erin Carmody and Katie Cunius have also already committed to St. Mary’s College in Maryland and Hofstra University in New York.

“Even with the loss of our seniors last year, we still have 90 percent of our starting lineup so I think we’ll do very well this season,” said St Laurent, echoing Eustace. “Last season we went all the way to the state semifinals and lost to the team that ended up winning states.” Last spring the team won their 4A-3A regional game 15-7 against Churchill after defeating Northwest in the sectional finals. The team ultimately lost to Bel Air in the state semifinal game.

“This season will be very interesting. We have tons of competition for starting spots and a balanced team across grade levels,” said coach Hughes. “We are returning many star players, most notably Anna Lippy. She was selected as ‘player of the year’ last year. She is dominant on the draw control and played both ends of the field. She will be a big leader this year as she is extremely competitive.”

Hughes believes that the team will improve from last year mostly due to depth and experience the players now have. “We have a very deep bench and a lot of options when it comes to who is playing which position.” Last year the team was almost entirely new after 12 players graduated. “We matured a lot last year and now we have the same group coming back.” The possibility is real that this Warriors squad can make it all the way to the state championship game.