On Wednesday, March 16, the lacrosse team faced Cary Grove to open their spring season for 2023. 

The team won with six goals from North’s players and an own goal by Cary Grove. Cary Grove was able to put four goals in by the end of the game. The leading scorers were Christain Taylor with three goals and Ryan Patzka with two goals, and Maddux Carr with the first goal of the season.

The team has been preparing for the start of the season since the beginning of the year by conditioning and also going to the weight room. They also tried to prepare the freshmen who have not played with these players previously but also have not played a high school lacrosse game before. 

“We just practice a lot. We did a couple of things because we have a lot of new freshmen on the team, so it was more like getting them prepared. We knew that Cary Grove had a couple of fast players from last year and that they were a physical team, so we just knew that defense was going to be a key thing,” said senior Matthew Gielczynski.

The game against Cary Grove was an important part to see how to better prepare for the rest of the season and what the team needs to work on during practices. The team is able to see how they work together during the game compared to the practices that they’ve had. 

“The game that we just played helped me improve for the rest of the season as I get to learn from my mistakes and I’m able to pick out what I did wrong in the game and be able to fix them and I can use that game to help me adjust with the new line up I have,” said senior Christian Taylor. 

“I feel like it was a good start to the season to get everybody back into the game. Get to know what we’re going to be doing. How we’re playing and just set us up,” said senior Grant Hamilton.

The win over Cary Grove had a lot of highlights for the players, and it showed the work that they put in during the offseason to get where they are now. 

“I felt like I played decent. I had a few mistakes, but they were minor mistakes,” Hamilton said. 

“I feel like I played pretty decent. I felt like I could’ve played a little bit better by making sure I pass the ball more often to others. I feel like I was being a good captain on the field by helping out the freshmen who played to know what to do and that I just felt like I played good overall,” Taylor said. 

Some of the players had a standout game for themselves. The players were also willing to point out the actions that their teammates made that helped them secure the win. 

“Christian Taylor literally came off the field one time, and he had three goals. He pretty much ran our entire offense and definitely helped out on defense. Then another key player was definitely Camden. He probably had like 10 saves, and he only let in four goals which is really good for a lacrosse game,” Gielczynski said.