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Lacrosse captain happy with team’s growth

November 18, 2019

Girls lacrosse club goalie, Lauren Koster, began playing lacrosse about five years ago. After taking a couple years off, Koster joined the club upon hearing about it from friends and her math teacher, Jenna SarakaSaraka runs the club alongside Charlie Dinnel, a coach outside the school.  

“My first thoughts were that we were definitely starting from scratch,” Koster said. “With people not even knowing what lacrosse was. That’s great, I love that, but we started with very basic actions. It was slow moving in the beginning but we’ve grown exponentially since then.” 

Because Dinnel has connections with Westside’s girls lacrosse team, Central’s club trained with them in the spring. Koster recalls her favorite memory from the season when reflecting, “We beat Westside 7-6. The game went into overtime. There was a penalty on the last shot and this girl was shooting right at me. The ball stopped right on the goal line, that was probably the coolest thing that happened for all of us. That was a really good game, they [Westside] were pissed.” 

Currently, the team is in fall league, so they do not practice and they have shortened games every Sunday. In the spring, the girls train and have hour-long games twice a week, whereas fall games last only 30 minutes. On the topic of wins and losses, Koster tells, “When we have our successes and even when we don’t succeed or we learn something from it, it’s a really cool thing to watch.” 

Koster believes that joining lacrosse is a great way to meet people. She also expresses adoration for the use of Capri-suns and sleepovers when bonding with the team. Girls from middle school come to play in the lacrosse club, everyone is very inclusive. “If you see an eighth grader you’re normally like, ‘ew,’ but with the team you don’t really care,” Koster remarks, “There’s AP kids, regular kids, IB kids, and we’re all just here to have fun.” 

Welcoming new people to try lacrosse, Koster assures, “even if you’re bad it doesn’t matter, we’re all just here to have a good time.” According to Koster, lacrosse requires endurance, some hand eye coordination, and the ability to run. As a goalie, Koster gets a lot of bruises, the yearbook even took a photo of one of her raunchiest/longest lasting bruises. She affirms, “I have learned how to not be afraid and that even if it hurts it’s going to be over in about 30 seconds so it doesn’t really matter.” 

Despite the importance of technique, Koster does not focus on any requirements of precision or grace when describing the team’s first goal. “Hanna Leslie scored the first goal and she did it like she was golfing and it went straight in the goal. It was the most unclean thing I have ever seen but it was so much fun.” The team has grown and learned to work together and improve as a whole. Of the club, Koster asserts, “It took players who had never heard of lacrosse and it has turned them into varsity level players.” 

 Balancing lacrosse with her education and work, Koster reports to have learned time management skills in addition to skills of prioritization. “We have the EE, a huge paper for IB, due this week. I had lacrosse yesterday,” Koster said. “I had to decide what was more important to me and I ended up not going to lacrosse.” 

Koster hopes to continue to play lacrosse in college recreationally, she has attended lacrosse camps, including a camp at Colorado University. After recalling her experience at the camp, Koster has a genuine love for the sport. “It’s super fun, I would like to keep playing even in just a club or a rec league when I go to college next year.” 

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