The men’s varsity lacrosse team closed off the regular season with an overall record of 8-8. According to Head Coach Will Jeffery, the team ended the season on a high note with a five game streak and hopes to keep the momentum going into playoffs. However, the Titans lost to Glenbard West in their last post-season game.

“We are peaking at the right time,” Jeffery said. “We’ve been saying that the playoffs started early for us [because] we’ve been playing how we want to play in the playoffs.”

Junior Aleks Jura hopes that the recent success won’t get to the team’s head going into playoffs. Jura points to the early season frustration as a reminder of the repercussions of cockiness.

“[It was] so frustrating; we lost against teams we should have killed,” Jura said. “It was probably because we were too cocky. Now at the end of the season, we’ve been getting big wins, and it’s been getting a lot better now.”

Senior captain McLain Murphy acknowledges that the turning point for the team was April 28, the day the boys hit the turf against rival Glenbrook North.  The team took a loss with the end scoreboard reading 10-6. Murphy says that the loss was a tough pill for the team to swallow, but it revealed to the team what was stunting their growth.

“We realized that when we make a lot of mental mistakes it eventually comes back to haunt us, and that’s exactly what happened in the Glenbrook North game,” Murphy said.

According to Murphy, with new insight into what needed correcting, the team walked into the New Trier game on May 3 with newfound confidence. Despite walking away with another loss at a score of 3-9. Murphy explains that it exemplified the team’s strength the most.   

“We wanted to win that one too, but then again, we made huge strides against New Trier,” Murphy said. “They scored the least amount of goals on us in our whole Conference […]. Only losing to a top five team by six goals is something we can be happy about since New Trier is such a powerhouse. It shows how much fight we have […]. It also shows that if we don’t make mental mistakes we could beat teams like New Trier.”

Murphy points out a specific moment in the New Trier match that sticks out as an immense GBS accomplishment. In the beginning of the game, the team held a 1-0 lead.

“We went up 1-0 right off the bat, and it was a cool feeling  because in my four years at GBS I don’t think there’s ever been a moment where we were beating New Trier,” Murphy said. “A defensemen EJ Reynolds […] was being double teamed and still somehow threw me the ball and I scored. I give a lot of props to EJ because he went through all the pain.”

Senior EJ Reynolds explains that he was extremely proud of that moment, but the game on May 16 against Lake Forest that closed the regular season was a huge win and confidence booster for the team.

“The Lake Forest game was another test for the team  as they were ranked amongst the top 10 in state,” Reynolds said. “It was a hard fought game, but I believe it was our squad’s ability to play selflessly that gave us the edge over Lake Forest, […] which solidified the team’s position as a high seed.”

Reflecting on the close of the regular season and predicting the future, Jeffery debunks skeptics and asserts that the team’s ability outshines the record and last season’s finish. Knowing that last season the team lost in the first round of playoffs, Jeffery works to prevent that from happening again.

“It’s a much different season than last years,” Jeffery said. “We got a couple of bad loses out of the way early [and the men] made their mistakes early on and learned from that.”

According to Murphy, the Titans finished their season on May 24, losing to Glenbard West ending by a score of 8-7.