The week before spring sports started, the weather was beautiful and the lacrosse girls  were playing outside in a shorts and a tee shirt. The sun was shining and the flowers were blooming. Then mother nature went crazy and decided to hit us with two massive snow storms 30 degree weather.

“This year was especially terrible having the sports in the gym for as long as we did,” said AD Robert Merkler. “The time schedule was set in January but with recreational basketball and all the spring sports having to share the gym it gets very complicated.”  Because the insane amount of snow took forever to melt, all spring sports were stuck in the gym for far longer than they wanted to be. It was especially frustrating when teams saw that other town’s fields were plowed. When players asked about this, Mr. Merkler explained the reason for being trapped in the gym so long is that the turf snowplow is $7,000 and it might not be worth it if some years the snow doesn’t stick. When all the sports teams offered to shovel they were told that if someone damages the turf while shoveling then it voids the warranty. So instead our lacrosse team went onto the turf and stomped on the snow and kicked it to the side hoping that it would make the snow melt faster.

The most obvious issue with being stuck in the gym is the inability to work on certain skills because of the confined space. Jenna Staranka, a senior lacrosse player, says, “Being stuck in the gym for so long really affected our stick skills in a negative way. We couldn’t practice long passes, ground balls, or a full field scrimmage. Because of these disadvantages we did not play as well as I believed we could in our first couple games. Our lacrosse team is used to being on a big field with a huge amount of space. When the ball dropped in the gym it would bounce everywhere and take time away from the drill we were running.”

These disadvantages may have detracted from our preseason but thankfully, as the season went on the snow finally melted. Now we are hoping for the weather to stay warm and that we will not see snow again until next year.