With spring right around the corner signaling a new season, the Hamline Lacrosse team dusts off their cleats and sticks to ready themselves for their upcoming season. The Pipers have a variety of recent changes that will be throwing them into challenges they have yet to face.
March 1 begins the start of the 2025 lax season, but that is not the only new thing about the team this season. With almost the entire roster being wiped after last year’s eight seniors graduated, this season’s team is full of young and hungry first-years looking to prove themselves on the field.
Team captain Avery Wilson noted the team has done a lot of team bonding with the new and returning team members so everyone got the opportunity to get to know one another better both on and off the field.
“These girls are brand new and definitely have different personalities than what the returners have and I think we just click so well,” Wilson said. “So I think that the [first-years] and especially the sophomores have stepped up in a leadership role and have done amazing things that I could have never at their age and they just constantly wow me, like they’re incredible.”
Not only is the lacrosse team itself filled with new roster members, but this spring marks a new conference for the returning lacrosse players. This season the Hamline lax team is making the switch from the Minnesota Athletic Conference (MIAC) to the Wisconsin Athletic Conference (WIAC). The switch between the two conferences now means that Pipers will not only be playing less of the teams they have in the past, but also new teams from Wisconsin that they have not faced against in the past.
“I am very excited for the new challenges and opportunities that will come with the new conference,” senior and team captain Nicole Phillips. “We have experience with some of the teams in the WIAC, but [to] have the opportunity to play many more teams will be very exciting.”
Wilson added on the conference transition and what it entails for the future of the program, along with the sudden change.
“We’re moving into a really challenging conference, I think that just giving
one hundred percent every single game and focusing on the process…and taking it day by day and growing every single day and getting better every single day. Learning from each game, each opportunity, taking each opportunity,” Wilson said.
Despite the unfamiliarity that is springing towards the lacrosse team, Phillips shared her hopes for the season.
“A team goal for us this season is to play for a reason. We all love and play lacrosse for different reasons, but they are all so special and it is very important to remember why you play when the season gets hard and demanding,” Wilson said.
