Written by Carly Kester
With spring under way, the Harding University lacrosse team has started off its season with six new players, two wins and five losses, and no coach.
The new players, all of whom are freshmen, are attacker Nathan Carpenter, midfielders Chris Stalcup, Ian Thompson, Brian Vogl, Kyle Weiland and goalie Jonathan Wood.
Since January, the Bisons have won against Tulane (10-6) and Oklahoma StateUniversity (11-10), and lost to Centenary College (12- 11), University of Oklahoma (14-6), Washington-St. Louis (18-6), University of Arkansas (16-15) and Missouri S&T (16-10).
This has been a rough season in more ways than one. The lacrosse team has been competing this season without a head coach because former coach Chris Hamilton accepted a teaching job in China last fall, according to senior Ryan Ishmael, a captain of the lacrosse team.
“Basically, me, John [Dunlop] and Zach Morgan have been coaching; planning practices and all that,” Ishmael said.”We don’t have a real coach, so it’s kind of hard to get stuff together, especially with new players.”
Senior midfielder Spencer Broom said that the team is still persevering despite not having a head coach and not getting the number of recruits it had hoped for.
“We’re doing pretty goodfor not having a coach; [the team is] completely player run,” Broom said. “We didn’t get as many new people as we were expecting so that didn’t really help out, but it hasn’t deterred us from playing.”
Ishmael said the team is also trying a new offensive strategy: isolation-based rather than set-based.
“Basically the strategy is to utilize the athletic talent we have and attack to win one-on-one matchups with our opposing defenders,” Ishmael said.
Junior and captain Zach Morgan said that the team is also trying to concentrate on accuracy and simplicity.
“We’re focusing on little things like keeping plays simple, trying to get everything right and not being too fancy in what we do,” Morgan said.
The lacrosse team’s next game will be Saturday, March 26, at 2 p.m. against Sam Houston State University.
