Women's Lacrosse Looks to Improve on Last Year's Campaign

Going into last season, there weren't too many expectations for the Plymouth State Women's Lacrosse team, as the starting line-up consisted of six freshman, and question marks all over the field. Winning a double digit amount of games was looked at as a reach, but the team ultimately finished 13-2, and had their season come to a close when they lost to Western Connecticut State University in a Little East Conference Semifinal match-up. Great season? No doubt about it.

This year, the mentality of the team is different.

"Our expectations, and our goals are to win the conference this year, and go to the NCAA tournament," Head Coach Kristin Blanchette stated after a practice last week. This goal seems to be one that is within reach, as the Panthers were selected to win the LEC for the 2013 season after receiving six out of seven first place votes in the coaches' preseason poll.

Just because PSU was picked to finish in first this season, they won't look ahead to any opponent, as they know they will have teams out to be them, week-in and week-out.  "Our main focus is each upcoming game, and what we are going to do to get better for that specific game" senior captain Marie Lander (Ossipee, N.H.) explained. Taking each opponent game-by-game is something that every coach stresses to her or his team, but Blanchette has truly had the team by into her coach system and style. Upon going to a couple of the team's practices, it became obvious to me right away that when Coach Blanchette talks, everyone listens.

This team consists of a group of underclassmen that are extremely talented, but also has a number of leaders between the seniors and juniors.

Senior captains Kristen Guest (Sandwich, Mass.) and Caitlin Swanson (Holderness, N.H.) were named to the Little East Conference first-team last year (along with three other Panthers), and look to have the best season of their tremendous careers in 2013. "At this point, we have a pretty solid team" Swanson said. "We have really high expectations for how we are going to perform. Right now, it is about the little things," added Swanson.

Lorin Field (Hollis, N.H.), Carol Messler (Durham, N.H.) and Allison Gonyea (Auburn, N.H.) are the only three juniors on this team, but each has a huge roll that keeps this team going. Field and Gonyea lead a defense that had a conference-low 8.21 goals against per games last season, while Messler is one of the vocal leaders of the team (and one of the most athletic players in all of PSU).

Amy MacDonald (Hull, Mass.), Molly Gleason (Haverhill, Mass.), Shannon Connerty (Nashua, N.H.) and Meghan McNabb (Lexington, Mass.) were all freshmen last season, but let the Little East Conference know that they were going to be a force throughout the duration of their college careers. Connerty, MacDonald and McNabb totaled 200 total points (130 goals, 70 assists), while Gleason set a new draw control record with 112 on the season. All four players seemed poised to have huge sophomore campaigns, and look to break more records.

The freshman group will be one that not only adds a lot of depth to the team, but one that will help with a lot of intangibles. "Brogan Canty, Kim Morris, Meg Grabowski, Anna Kirwan, and Emily Tilton will be the freshman that I will look at to contribute this season". Canty (South Windsor, Conn.), Morris (Londonderry, N.H.), Grabowski (West Hartford, Conn.), Kirwan (Scituate, Mass.) and Tilton (Cranston, R.I.) will look to show the Little East Conference that their respective class will be a force, and look to follow in last year's freshman class.

It is going to be tough for PSU to sustain any type of momentum, as they won't have their first home game until April 11^th against Framingham State University. Between then and now, the team has eight road games, two of which will take place in Colorado as the team travels out West for Spring Break. Last season, the team went out to Texas, where Coach Blanchette had a lot of surprises for her team. Needless to say, the anticipation of surprises for the team is extremely intriguing to all of the players.

 "1-2-3- ACT AS IF!" exclaimed the team upon finishing a practice. I started to ponder as to what that meant, and I realized what it meant. When no one is watching, how are you going to act? This team acts the same on the field as they do off, as not only are they 100% committed to lacrosse (day-in and day-out, this team was doing work-outs throughout the off-season), but they also had one of PSU's highest G.P.A. between any of the sports teams. This is something that the players and coaches alike take a lot of pride in.

"We surprised a lot of people last year, so now we have the target on our backs," Caitlin Swanson said. "We have to rise above the pressure, and continue playing Plymouth State Lacrosse." With a senior captain that is as much of a leader as Swanson is (Note: she has scored in every collegiate game {45} she has played in), this team is destined to do big things this year.