Friends Girls Lacrosse New Coach to Focus on Balance

There are a lot of unknowns for this year’s girls varsity lacrosse team at Friends School. To begin, the team has a new head coach, and only one senior on its 15-player roster.

Yet for the team that lost in the IAAM B conference finals last year, balance is one known quality for this year’s Lady Quakers.

“All over the field—defense, attack, midfield, goal keeper—we have a group of girls that works hard,” head coach Mandy Hudson said when asked to assess the team’s strong points. “If they’re going to work hard every day in practice, that’s the strength right there,” she said.

And if a successful scrimmage against Garrison Forest and an early season win against the Annapolis-area Indian Creek Upper School is any indication, hard work and balance may indeed be the team’s strength.

Placing her focus on that balance—and building a team concept—Hudson has not publicly shared her opinions regarding one player’s ability over another.

“I have a hard time being new and not wanting to put a lot on anyone’s shoulders,” Hudson said, adding she also doesn’t want to take any responsibility away from someone who “might be the silent leader that hasn’t blossomed yet or is in the process of blossoming.”

In noting the rich lacrosse tradition at Friends, Hudson said she has been trying to take a look at the team and build on what it can do.

“We look at each practice and game experience as a learning experience so that we can break things down, and build them back up, and hope to come together a little bit better every day,” she said in an early March interview.

“And each practice we learn more about each other,” she said.

The coach did say she is looking to the team’s one senior, Isabel Swicklik, “for some good strong leadership on the field.”

Primarily playing defense, Swicklik is in her fourth year of lacrosse at Friends.

In addition to Swicklik, the slim roster features seven juniors, three sophomores and four freshmen.

Hudson noted freshman Rose Woolson will start in goal for the Lady Quakers.

“She is a sponge—she is learning everything as fast as she can,” Hudson said.  “(She is) working hard in the net, working on communication with our defense—which has been something we have been working on since day one—and doing a great job.”

Speaking in general terms, Hudson said any one of four players may take the draw from time to time. “We’re going to be mixing it up a lot to keep everyone on their toes,” she said.

Hudson’s aim is to give everyone a chance to run down on attack and have attack wings play on defense.

“Again, our balance is our strength,” she said. “Everybody’s learning low defense, everybody’s learning team defense, everybody’s learning double-teaming, everybody’s learning how to shoot. The whole squad is going through everything,” she said.

“I want everybody to understand that if I need someone to be put in a position they may not be familiar with, I want them to have the knowledge and the confidence that they can be put anywhere on the field.”

And that all leads to a uniqueness Hudson sees in the team—their ability to rely upon each other and not hold on to the ball too long.

“The lacrosse ball travels better in the air than it does in someone’s stick,” the coach said. “It takes a team to get that ball from one end of the field to the other, and that’s what we are here to do.”

Realizing that the IAAM B conference is competitive, Hudson said the team is really not focusing on one particular game.

“I have not gotten that sense at all from them,” she said. “We’re going to take each game as if this is the game of the season. You respect your opponent regardless of what you may think or what they may think. Once you get on the field, you need to work hard and play for the outcome.”

Another point Hudson wants to emphasize this year: to instill some lessons in the girls.

“Some have to do with lacrosse, some have to do with life,” she said.  “I want them to walk off the field and say, ‘I had a lot of fun. I learned a lot about the game, and I learned a lot about my teammates.’”

Hudson continued, “Whether they be leadership skills, work ethic, trust—all of those are things I think you can learn and grow on the field and just blossom once you walk off.”