For most Keene State College athletes, participating in sports is more than just simply playing. To achieve and accomplish goals on the field shows growth and great strength in the Owl nation. This holds true for women’s lacrosse players senior Taylor Farland and junior Chelsea Lewis, who just reached career highs in the bottom half of their season.
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Farland set a personal career high of seven goals against the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, which led The Owls to a 12-4 victory. Reaching a career high right after reaching her 100th career goal in lacrosse was something that Farland described as an exciting feeling. “Every game, you have the intentions of putting your best effort out for the team,” Farland said. The senior added that her accomplishments motivate her to put in increased effort for her team’s sake. “Reaching this goal just pushes me to work harder for [the team],” Farland said.
Reaching a career high in a conference game is not easy, but Farland said that with every conference game, the outcome truly depends on which team wants it more. “I think, walking out onto the field the other day, every player was ready to work and came out fired up. Those positive attitudes really help to keep me motivated and push me to my best abilities,” Farland said. Confidence is a key factor which helps individual players come together as a team, and, for Farland, the confidence that comes with scoring only inspires her to do better for her team. “I don’t think there is a player on this team that counts up their goals during a game. You have a job and your coaches, teammates and supporters expect you to get it done,” Farland said.
Even though Farland stands out as a strong player, the senior said her team has many strong individual players that help bring everything together. Farland added that something she feels her team has as an advantage over some of their competitors this season is having a really strong bench. “I can honestly say that whenever someone gets subbed out, I am confident that the next player coming on the field will not skip a beat and we will be able to continue working well together,” Farland said.
Farland said achieving all these goals is great and, if the hard work continues on her team, the women’s lacrosse team could finish the season really strong. “I believe that hard work is contagious; when you see a teammate taking that extra effort to go for a ground ball, to get a rebound or to re-defend that energy moves throughout the whole field and gets every player pumped up,” Farland said.
Junior and fellow teammate Chelsea Lewis said that it felt good to reach a career high in assists, especially because Lewis doesn’t consider assisting a strong point of hers. “I get nervous before every game so reaching a career high makes me more confident going into these tougher games we have,” Lewis said. Much like Farland, Lewis said she feels like her team contributes to her level of play from game to game. “My team and coach helped me get to this level of play. When you get to play with people like my team, you just want to be better and work harder,” Lewis said. Strong individual players, which Lewis said she is very lucky to have, help bring everything together. “It is definitely important to have strong individual players on a team as long as they are still a team player. On this team, we have eleven strong individual players out on the field that also play as a team. It’s not just one or two people doing all the work,” Lewis said.
Now that the season is coming to a quick end, Lewis said that her team hopes to end the season with a championship. “I think when someone succeeds on our team, it makes us all want to be better. I really look up to them no matter what the year the player is,” Lewis said.
Head Coach of the KSC women’s lacrosse team Katie Clark did not respond or comment regarding this topic.
Caroline Perry can be contacted at cperry@kscequinox.com
