Written by: Olivia F.
Upland Country Day School is a private school in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania that was founded in 1948. At Upland, we focus on the four A’s. These include Academics, Arts, Attitude, and most importantly Athletics. Upland Lacrosse has been a staple at Upland for years. During lacrosse seasons students get to learn how to play a different sport, travel, and make new relationships with other lacrosse players at the school and rival schools.
Last year was my first year playing lacrosse and there were many new fundamentals to learn, including skills, positions, and rules. With the help of my coaches, I learned to pick up ground balls, cradle, pass, catch, and shoot pretty quickly. The next step to learning lacrosse was getting familiar with the positions. There are eleven players on the field. This includes four defensemen, two of which are low defense (closer to their goaltender) and the other two are high defense (closer to the midline). There are three midfielders, two wingers, and one person who takes the draw at the beginning of a game and after goals. As we move down the field, there are four attack players, two of these offenders are high (closer to the midline) and the other two are low (closer to the opposing team’s goalie). After learning these positions it was time to learn the complicated rules of lacrosse. Since there are many rules to lacrosse, I will state the basics. For example, drawing control motion, the restraining line, avoiding the goalie circle, checking the stick, major and minor fouls, and free position or indirect free position. Learning these fundamentals seemed easy, but it was challenging to apply in a game.
This year was my second Upland Lacrosse season. The team started practicing very hard to prepare for the upcoming games against local schools like H.B. Dupont, Kennett Middle School, and Tatnal. It took us some time to get used to playing with each other since some of us were new to lacrosse and hadn’t played before. Even with varying levels of experience, we won our first game. We continued to play games and ended up being undefeated so far. As the season went on, the team started to bond more and more and work better as a team.
Around halfway through the season, we were invited to the Rumsey Hall School in Washington, Connecticut for an Invitational Lacrosse Tournament (which Upland has attended before). Going into this tournament we managed to be undefeated, being 10-0-1 with only 5 games left in the season. At this tournament, we would play teams like the Rumsey Hall School, Rectory, and Indian Mountain School (IMS). We started to practice even harder to prepare for this tournament. Soon enough, the day came when we made our way up to Connecticut. We bonded as a team on the van ride and made memories I will never forget. When we finally got to Rumsey, we met our host families for the night. We woke up in the morning and headed to Rumsey school with our host girls for our first out of four back-to-back games. For the first game, we played Rumsey and beat them 10-2. The next game we played, we won 10-8 against Rectory. For our third game, we played IMS. This was the hardest game we played all season; in the end, we lost 10-8 but it was a very close game. After playing these games, we secured ourselves in the championship against IMS. The game was back and forth and in the end we sadly lost 10-9, placing 2nd in the tournament. Only losing by one point to IMS (previous champions) was exceptional and our coaches were very proud of us.
In conclusion, Upland Lacrosse teaches discipline, the idea that putting in the work will pay off, allows people to learn a new sport, try new things, and helps in building new connections with other lacrosse players. By being a part of this team, I made bonds with people on my team and at the Rumsey Hall School. As a new player, I recommend trying lacrosse and I am looking forward to continuing my career in lacrosse at Upland.
