Girls’ Lax Punishes NMH with Offense

Last Saturday, the girls’ varsity lacrosse team competed against Northfield Mount Hermon on its home turf, in the Phelps Stadium. Despite some lackadaisical teamwork towards the latter of the first half of the game, the team still kept a constant lead, ahead of NMH, ending the game with a score of 19-12. This victory extends its winning streak to a 7-0.Big Red dominated the game right off the whistle, characteristic of its intense style of play. The team started with a number of goals, building momentum till the score was 5-0. At that point, the coaches made a decision to swap out a number of players on the starting lineup. It came as little surprise when NMH started to seem like it would make a comeback. At the end of the first half, NMH had brought the score to 11-7. In spite of this, the girls were not worried as to whether they would lose the game, but rather placed emphasis on the final score of the game. “I wasn’t worried about us winning but rather about how much. So, just making sure they weren’t going to come close to our score.” Lower and starter, Chandler Jean-Jacques said.Jean-Jacques commented on the defensive issues of the game. “Some of our weaknesses were on the defensive end, allowing them to get a little farther downfield.” One major challenge Big Red faced during the game was with the defense. Not enough care was given to staying on and marking the opposing player it intended to guard. A lot of the time, Exeter’s defenders guarded their opposition from much too far away.One could attribute these little faults to problems with teamwork. Lower and goalie Cammie Lavoie explained that these resulted from inserting a younger player into a line of older and more experienced players who know each other’s style of play in and out. “It’s when communication stops that things start to fall apart. In the game, that’s because we have a strong defensive line of all seniors who have been playing together for a long time and when someone else, like a prep or lower is added to that mix, it messes with their chemistry.”All in all, Big Red’s shot percentage saw an increase within this last game and its performance of the draw has seen a rise as well. Lower Bella Hillman commented that all the team has to do is play together a lot more and in every game, as it aims for its perfect season, “just keep playing the whole fifty.”The team has a busy schedule ahead. Exeter girls’ varsity lacrosse will play three games next week against Nobles, St. Paul’s and Milton, respectively.