By Ben Reed, Staff Reporter
The future of Conestoga girls’ lacrosse is present as many younger players are helping to lead the team to success in the 2021 season. This year, six freshmen made the girls’ varsity lacrosse team, the most the team has ever had since last year’s record of four freshmen according to coach Amy Orcutt.
The six freshmen are Natatlie Yarmark, Keating Hopkins, Chloe Brown, Emma Nikolic, Kiki Liebezeit and Alex Lepore. Yarmark explained what it has been like to make the jump from middle school to varsity high school lacrosse.
“It’s definitely a lot different, a lot more competitive and everyone’s really good, but as long as it’s a really good challenge every single girl on the team is always making me better every day,” Yarmark said. “I’m not going to be as good as one of the seniors but still practicing with them and playing with them is just going to make me a better player.”
Coach Amy Orcutt also weighed in on how the younger players are performing and adapting to the high school level of play.
“They’re all really tough kids, they love being pushed by upperclassmen and by coaches, and I think it’s really cool to see.” Orcutt said. “It is a different game coming from eighth grade and I think there were nerves in the beginning but we’ve been practicing together as a team for quite some time and they just get a little more confident as the season goes on.”
Besides the increased difficulty in games and in practice, high school lacrosse has differed from middle school play in other ways. Liebezeit explained how playing at the higher level affects the type of players she plays and competes with.
“It’s way different, the pace of the play is so much faster.” Liebezeit said. “Everyone’s on the same level almost or higher because in middle school not all people did it for outside club, most people just did it for fun with friends.”
Making the varsity team was a dream of Liebezeit. She described how exciting this season has been while giving examples of some of her favorite moments including exciting games and winning the Central League championship.
“Our most exciting game was against Penn Charter which was sadly a tie, but we worked so good as a unit, (our) defense was really strong.” Liebezeit said. “Our game against Garnet (Valley) was so exciting especially when Rachel scored in the last second.”
Since freshmen rarely make varsity and there are such few on the team, it is very impressive for the girls that did make it. Yarmark expressed what it meant to her to make the team.
“It felt really good to make varsity, but also it’s just like a really big role and I’m really grateful to be on the team because of how much I’m learning every day from all the other girls on the team.” Yarmark said. “Like I said, there’s so many amazing players and every single day, just playing against them is making me better.”
Ben Reed can be reached at [email protected].
