The Mavericks Women’s Lacrosse Team is looking to continue their winning ways under new Head Coach Shannon McHale.
The Mavericks return nearly the same roster from 2020 as only three girls didn’t return to their roster for this season. They lost two defenders and one goalie in Karlie Hadden, Saran Khalid and Cami Huff.
The Mavericks finished the COVID shortened season with a 2-2 record. Coming into this season, McHale and her players want to win every game.
“We’re thinking we can win pretty much any game we played this year. Just don’t know what’s going to translate. I think if we go in thinking we win some, and we lose some whatever, then that is not the environment we want. We want to think we’re going to win every game and know that we have the opportunity to do that. It’s how we can put things together,” McHale said.
Colorado Mesa University (CMU) will have to start hot if they want to win every game as they open their season with their arch-nemesis Regis University (RU). The Mavericks are 0-21 in program history when matched up against the Rangers.
The Mavericks start their season on the road for their opening four games with RU first, and then they travel to Colorado College for their second game. CMU is then set to travel to play their rival, Lindenwood University (LU) before they end the road trip against the University of Indianapolis.
Colorado Mesa University (CMU) returns all their top scorers from last season, but they also added a couple of transfers to the offense. Senior attacker Kenzie Blackwell returns, and she led the Mavericks in scoring last season with 11 goals and five assists.
The Mavericks offense will look similar to last season, but they were able to bring in a couple of transfers to bolster their lineup.
Sophomore midfielder Kylie Davis transferred to CMU from Coastal Carolina University (CCU). Davis finished with three goals in five games last season before the season was cut short by COVID.
Junior midfielder Ashton Whittle said that Davis’ lacrosse IQ and her creativity on the field are what make her fun to play and collaborate with while on the field.
“It’s been really nice because I like to implement a lot of creativity with plays on the attack and different things like that. [Davis and I] in practice, we pull each other to the side, to say hey, ‘let’s try this out. The defense’s reading that way, so, let’s try something this way.’ It’s been nice because she is so creative and has great field vision on the attack side and everything like that,” Whittle said.
Whittle returns after finishing third on the team in scoring as she ended with seven points in four games. She was also moved back to the midfield position after playing attack last season.
Whittle played midfield her freshman year and ended the season with 25 goals and five assists.
Sophomore attacker Regan Wentz was moved from midfield to attack for this season.
“My strong suit, just being a natural left-hander is using both my hands. She recognized that right out of the gate and was like we’re going to put you on the crease so you can roll either way,” Wentz said.
The Mavericks defense bolsters a healthy balance of young players and veteran players. Senior defenders Raquel Ruhme and Abigail Witmer return as well as junior defenders Elizabeth Posavad.
“Abby has totally meshed with everybody on the team and so has Raquel. They both have been on top of it and they have made connections with freshmen and sophomores. Defense is a little bit of a smaller unit, but they have made the effort to mesh with everybody,” Posavad said. “As a defensive unit, we’ve started to work together so much better, and we just completely mesh as a unit.”
The upperclassmen don’t just help get the freshmen defenders up to speed. They can help take some of the pressure off the midfielders to try and ease the transition to a their new defensive scheme.
CMU returns their senior goalie Lula Mitchell who registered 231:40 in the cage last season. Mitchell started all four games for CMU and she ended the season with 45 saves.
The experience on the defensive side of the ball for CMU will help the freshmen adjust to the speed of college lacrosse.
The Maverick’s first game is on Saturday, March 13 against RU in Denver, Colo.
