A new season for the Hawthorne High School lacrosse team has begun, and head coach Greg Carr, and his two team captains Cole Biedrzycki (senior), and Jared Chichizola (junior) are prepared for the season. The team will be playing thirteen games this year. Their first official game is March 26, in East Side, Newark.

Arriving at one of the first practices of the season, there were students, most of them male, and some female, preparing to lift weights. The atmosphere was positive, energized, and motivated, automatically giving the sense of a successful team at work.

A Clarion reporter presented the following questions, to Carr, Biedrzicki, and Chichizola.

HHS Clarion reporter : How do you think the season will go?

Carr:  “I think we are a building team, and I think we’re building in the right direction. You might look at last year’s record and say, we’re not doing so hot. But I think, new coaches, new players, new philosophy; we will really push forward and have a  successful season. It’s hard to tell this early in the season. We can only lift [weights] until Friday, and then we’ll actually be able to get on the field and play, [and] see where we could put players. But when it comes to game day, I’m going to put the best players out there to win as many games as possible this season.”

Chichizola: “Well, I’m hoping it’ll be a lot better than last year. The team’s going to have more experience, so I think we’ll have a more productive season this year.”

Biedrzycki: “I think the season will go very well, because we all seem to be very committed players. We all seem to have real compassion for the sport…We are ready for the season.”

HHS Clarion Reporter : What are some things that you teach/learn during practice to help in games?

Carr: “A lot of things that correlate to lacrosse is actual game play, so when we practice it’s more of a six on six kind of field, so we need to have live drills going throughout every practice. A lot of  the drills that we do are live so that when it comes to games it’s always game speed. At practice and games; no matter where we are, no matter what we’re doing and that’s one thing that I preach as a head coach. We need to be game speed and ready for anything that’s gonna come.”

Chichizola: “I’m a goalie, so coach works with me on shooting, keeping focus on the ball, directing the defense and getting outlet passes to the clear.”

Biedrzycki: “We go for game-like scenarios. We’ll learn what to do on certain dodges, how to adjust on different defensive positions and how to really work it off as a movement. We practice like we play. We do what we would do against another team but we practice against ourselves like it’s another person.”

HHS Clarion reporter : Anything that you want to accomplish this year?

Carr: “Win games…My focus is to have a successful team, and by a success I mean a team that sticks together, a team that holds each other’s backs. Everybody is there for each other. The goal is not to lose anybody at the end of the season, [and to] have the same amount of players that we have now, in the beginning. We need to have a family as a team so those are some goals that we might want to set. Become a family, and winning games will come with all of that, but we just need to focus on the small stuff.”

Good luck this season! Go Bears!