Girls’ lacrosse to compete for conference despite losing key scorers

Isaac Goffin | Conant Crier

After finishing third in the MSL West last season, the girls’ lacrosse team expects to compete for a conference championship this season.

Despite losing most of their scoring from last season, the girls’ lacrosse team looks to improve off their 10-13, 3-2 record from last season and compete for a conference championship. They played their first game of the season yesterday — losing 13-5 to Glenbrook North at Conant — and play again tonight against Evanston at Conant at 7:30 p.m.

Head coach Eric Jacobsen said, “We got to figure out what our chemistry combination is going to be with our girls. We got some returning experience, but we graduated a lot of our scoring.” Last year’s leading scorer, midfielder Cassandra Jones, ‘18, is now on the Illinois Wesleyan University lacrosse team.

Attack Betsy Riley, ‘19, said, “Last year, we relied on [Jones] for a lot of our scoring. This year, we are going to be more of a group than one player when it comes to scoring.”

“It’s going to be a combination of speed and skill that we will have,” Jacobsen said. “I expect to score a handful of our goals in transition off the draw.”

In terms of defense, Emily Weishaar, ‘19, will anchor them. In order to limit goals, Weishaar said that the defense will emphasize communication this season, as a lot of the goals they gave up last season happened when the defense was not talking to each other.

The defense will be helping a new goalie this season, Abby Alcantara, ‘21. Her sister, Abby Alcantara, ‘18, was their goalie for the past two seasons and is now playing on the club team at Illinois State University.

Jacobsen said, “She’ll be inexperienced at the varsity level, but she played a lot of club and has gone to a lot of goalie clinics.”

Alcantara has received support from the defense. “They are definitely going to be leaders stepping up to the plate. They’ve definitely have helped me get comfortable on varsity,” she said.

According to Jacobsen, he expects the conference to be more competitive than last season. “It’s probably going to come down to a four-way battle between us, Schaumburg, Hoffman, and Barrington. Barrington is probably the favorite. I would put Hoffman down as the dark horse. I think they can surprise some people,” he said.

+2