Girls’ Varsity Lacrosse is ready to compete and work as a collective group this season, midfielder, senior Gabi Swidler, said.

The girls are striving to achieve their key goal of bonding as a team. With the abundant amount of seniors that were on the team last season it has brought way for 17 new girls on varsity this season, Swidler said.

“There were a lot of seniors on the team last year,” Swidler said. “So the team chemistry and everybody bonding was a difficult challenge for our team. But, we can do a lot better at that this year and form connections between the upper and underclassmen.”

This season there is a new head coach, Tom Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum, having coached the Varsity Girls’ Lacrosse team at Glenbrook North for 23 years, is excited for his first season coaching at South. As a new coach, he has set an agenda with goals for the team, Rosenbaum explained.

“We are learning to play with each other, trust each other, and believe in each other,” Rosenbaum said. “Each practice, we are learning a lot about the team.”

Due to the large number of new players on the team, there is a lack of knowledge about the literal game-play, Rosenbaum explained. As a new coach, he has set an agenda with goals for the team.

“Some of our goals are to improve communication and increase every player’s field awareness and lacrosse IQ,” Rosenbaum said. “Overall, we want to improve daily and become better today than we were yesterday.”

With goals to improve this season, two-year varsity attacker sophomore Townsend Walter is expecting South to have a more competitive and successful season due to the incoming talent from the lower classmen.

“Our goal this year is to have a better record,” Walter said. “Last year South was not the best in the conference, but in previous years they were, and we know we can be better.”

Varsity Lacrosse is eager to compete against North, South’s rival, Swidler said. Especially since it falls on their senior night.

“GBN is our rival, and I don’t think we’ve lost to them in about 20 years,” Swidler said. “So it’s always a big game for us, and it feels good to win that one.”

Being able to see the team’s improvements through the season is one of the best parts of playing lacrosse at South, Swidler said. Making memories and having fun playing as a team is what makes it so bittersweet to end the season.

“By the end of the season, everybody’s al- ways so sad that it’s over because everyone has so much fun and really enjoys the sport and the team,” Swidler said.