Springing Into Lacrosse

As the weather started to transition into Spring, so did our lacrosse season. To give you all a little background check, my name (if you haven't picked it up by this point) is Livi Kimche, and I'm number thirty-eight, but it's the name on the front of the jersey that counts; I play attack and midfield for Park City Lacrosse. As I've previously written about, our pre-season was kicked off with an ultra fun tournament in Vegas; we took that title home with us on a high note.

Since the Las Vegas tourney, our season has been nothing but smooth sailing, to say the least. It might be more accurate to describe it as smooth sailing on the sweat and tears of the teams we have basically been demolishing every time we step on the field. Yes, okay... maybe that's a little excessive, but with a record of 12-0 and game scores coming down to 15-3, and 10-4, it's a little hard to put it any other way; Park City is a power house.

Photo Courtesy to Julie Shipman

Playoffs begin this Friday. Our first game is scheduled 7:00PM Friday night at our home field, Dozier, and yes I hope to see you there ;-) We play Juan Diego, the last time we played them was in March, and the final score was 13-5. I think it should be a better game though because everyone gets hyped for playoffs. It works like a bracket, and if you lose your out. If we win on Friday we'll move on to the next round.

Bracket Courtesy to Utah Lacrosse News

I like consistency and routine, so does the rest of our team. Having a pre-game routine is a really important part of our dynamic before a game, especially a play-off game. We start by taking a lap around the field, nothing fancy, just a light jog basically. Then we go straight into some ladders to warm up our feet, after ladders we line up for dynamic stretching. Being all lined up with my team for stretches pumps me up. After that we start one sided shuttles to pass, catch, and warm up our sticks. Then we get into 3v4s, and 3v2s, which are three people versus four or two other people in a mini half-field scrimmage until the offense scores or defense clears the ball out. Our routine helps us prepare not only physically but mentally for the game.

Park City, being the reigning State Champs two years in a row, has a lot to loose. Being a freshman on the team, I definitely feel the pressure to win. With hard work comes results, I think the hardest thing for I team the upcoming two weeks will be maintaining a strong head game. The biggest upsets are usually when a team predicted to win goes in thinking that it's going to be an easy game. If we keep the right mindsets I can see a state title in our future, but we definitely have to keep the fire alive and not let our guard down, because Park City is who everyone wants to beat right now.

Vegas Baby

As you may have yet to figure out, I do play lacrosse for Park City High School. Last weekend the girls Varsity and Junior Varsity went to a tournament in Las Vegas called Best of the West.

We left on Thursday afternoon (meaning school on Friday was bust *fist bump*). I spent the seven hour drive with my mother... The car ride actually wasn't as bad as I was mentally preparing myself for. On the way there we took a quick pit-stop at Café Rio with a few of the other girls on my team.

We pulled in to the Hampton Inn at approximately 10:00 PM. Arriving at the hotel is always a process. Finding out who you're rooming with and getting situated is can be substantially draining. Once everyone threw their suitcases in their room, that was all that was the only trace left of them there. Everyone was scattered through all of the second floor, gushing through the halls and jumping from room to room socializing. Eventually the social hour(s) started to die out and I found myself in bed watching the Titanic with my two other roommates. Leonardo DiCaprio is exceedingly attractive, to say the least.

The next morning the team had to be downstairs no later than 8:00 AM for a luxurious complimentary breakfast consisting of stale bagels, over-ripe fruit, and some eggs that resembled something closer to rubber than breakfast food. By 8:45 AM we were driving to the fields for a 9:00 AM practice. Getting to the fields was a little bit of a struggle due to a wrong right hand turn (go mom). The fields were super nice. You could still smell the fresh new paint on the turf. The sky was drowning in blue and not a cloud interrupted the atmosphere. It was decently warm, but nothing exotic. A cool breeze kept us from getting too hot. Our practice went well and our coaches were happy to go over a few things before any of our actual games.

Me: Captured by Julie Shipman

After our practice ended we all went back to the hotel to rest before our first game at 6:00 PM.

Playing under the lights was my favorite part of the whole tournament. I don't know what it is but something about playing on a lit field in the dark of night pumps me up. It's like the lights fuel my fury ;-). Ok maybe not to that extent, but I love the lights. We won our first game 15-3. Needless to say our team jelled. Our first time playing with each other felt like our one-hundredth.

The next several games went quite similarly. Scores like 16-4, 12-3, and 11-5 almost had me feeling sorry.

Play off day was better. We were playing better teams that were seeded. Our first game was against Juan Diego. It got a little rough and I honestly found myself on the ground half the time. We won.

Next game: Herriman. We won. Advancing us to the championship game against Brighton. The game was close. We were tied 7-7 at the whistle. We ended up winning off of a penalty shot in sudden death overtime.

I can confidently say that Park City is the Best of the West.

Photo/Bracket Courtesy bestofthewestlacrosse