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Varsity Maine reporters ventured out in the snow Tuesday to visit Waynflete/NYA and Lawrence baseball and Leavitt girls lacrosse preseason practices. Here’s what we learned in Turner:
Mistakes are inevitable with any program making the jump from junior varsity to varsity, especially one with players brand new to the sport.
Dropped passes, missed shots — they’re going to happen.
But mistakes are exactly what Leavitt girls lacrosse coach Jennifer Darasz is encouraging her players to make, especially in the second week of full practices in their first season as a varsity program (the Hornets were a JV team last year).
“I would rather you try something brand new (at practice) and fail at it 30 times than go out there and just grab your stick and do something you’ve never done before and then we lose the draw or we lose the ground ball,” said Darasz. “We have to make that back up. So making the mistakes now is what I want. I want them to be OK with failure so that they can be comfortable being uncomfortable.”
BEGINNING TO LOOK LIKE A LACROSSE TEAM
With a large chunk of lacrosse newcomers on the roster, working on the fundamentals continues to be a top priority for the Hornets.
Practice opened with passing and scoring drills and wrapped up with a focus on defending in short-handed situations. Darasz has stressed to her players improvement will come, and she’s already seeing it in strides.
“There’s something to be said about trying something new when you’re in high school, and it is super hard and uncomfortable to put yourself out there, especially as girls, we get in our heads,” Darasz said. “But, right now, the hard is what’s going to make this so much better once we put it all together, because that’s what makes us cool. These girls chose to be here. They dropped different sports to try something crazy and something they’ve never tried, and they’re putting together a lacrosse team and they’re looking like lacrosse players.”
RETURNERS IN THE GOALIE ROOM
Both of Leavitt’s goalies — sophomore Mallory White and junior Ava Thibodeau — are returners from last year’s JV squad.
This is a welcome sight amidst all the first-time players, and the goalies’ experience and communication from the cage will be crucial to the young team.
“The goalies started a week early, so we definitely got a little bit of early practice in, and it went pretty well,” Thibodeau said. “It was good to be sure in my position, get those good saves in before everyone else came in.”
The Hornets will take to the field next Tuesday for their first scrimmage of the season against Lewiston.
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