After dealing with several injuries that weakened the team’s season last year, returning varsity lacrosse players Charlie Kidder ‘17 and Jack Walton ‘17 aspire to reconstruct this year’s team in order to ensure a more successful season.

“We had a really hot start,” Kidder said. “Around mid-season, we lost a couple of players due to injury and our performance dropped the second half of the season. We also lost several close games.”

In order to start off on a strong foot, the upcoming team is doing much in preparation to get ready for the season, Walton said. The majority of the squad meets every Wednesday to partake in lacrosse intramurals for two hours at LT South Campus. Also, the players meet occasionally for extra conditioning training at impromptu locations.

As far as their teammates, Walton, who has signed to play Division III lacrosse and football at Tufts University, believes that the incoming roster is destined to bring forward some major success in this upcoming season, he said. Since tryouts began on Feb. 27, the team has not been completely established, but there are several indications of who will be a part of the team this year.

“We are bringing back many players from last year’s team and many underclassmen that are pretty good,” he said. “I think we have a pretty solid upside to this year’s season.”

Additionally, Kidder sees this year’s group having an older and much stronger leadership to direct the team to victory.

“This year we have a ton of senior leadership,” he said. “Last year we had three junior captains. I think everyone is pissed off about last season and now has motivation to come back out and prove ourselves this year. We’ll stick through it even if we lose guys to injury again.”

Although last season had its rough patches, there is more confidence that the team will be victorious this season, starting from the very first game on March 15 against Lake Forest Academy at Bennett Field, Walton said.

“I expect that we will be conference champions,” he said. “I think right now we probably have the best players in the conference and a couple kids are looking at schools for lacrosse so we should have a good shot.”

Not only conference, but Kidder shares aspirations to make it far down the line in the state series.

“Assuming that we’re healthy and everyone is in the right spot, we can definitely win a few playoff games,” Kidder said. “We have a lot of returning varsity talent, and a couple of seniors that are determined to make a run in the playoffs. We have a lot of good younger players too who we plan on having as strong assets to the team.”