With a feed from midfielder Michael Brownlee (11), attacker Merrick Flemming (11) dodged past his defender behind the crease, sprinted towards the right elbow of the eight-meter and ripped a shot towards the top left of the goal to score Westview’s sixth point of the night right before halftime, March 20. The goal solidified their lead which only grew as the game progressed. Boys lacrosse took on La Jolla, holding a lead for the entire game against the D1 team and ultimately winning, 11-4.
By targeting quick transitions down the field, focusing on slow-breaks, and communicating all around the field, Westview played with a team-first mentality, according to Brownlee.
“The La Jolla game was our best game yet,” Brownlee said. “Our offense played smart, and our defense transitioned well. We didn’t have a ton of subs, so playing with the mentality of the team first and yourself next was important.”
Before playing La Jolla, the team studied game film. Brownlee said they were confident that if they ran quick plays and focused on moving intentionally, they’d succeed.
“The expectation for the game was definitely to come out fast and play how we know we can play—at a high level and at a high pace,” Brownlee said. “We studied them on film and knew we were the better team. We needed to be moving with purpose, so when running plays, we had to [be] sprinting around and not just jogging to keep the pace up.”
The Wolverines were able to work together on offense in order to slide past La Jolla’s zone defense, according to Fleming.
“Our chemistry was strong,” Flemming said. “Their defense was a zone, so our offense had to work together instead of playing selfishly. We were moving the ball out and passing it off to open up shots for our own teammates, which helped us put up a good number of goals.”
In the past, Fleming said the team has shown a tendency of losing energy during the second half. He said that they are working to combat this pattern and stay in control of the entire game..
“We [need to] work on finishing the game strong,” Flemming said. “We had control of the game and should have had at least a couple more goals at the end and just kept going the whole time. But, I’m proud of how our team played.”
Westview had two players out during the second half due to injuries. Brownlee noted that the team’s trust in one another was important to keep them going strong throughout the game.
“Injuries are definitely tough to deal with, but it’s always that kind of next-man-up mentality,” Brownlee said. “We have a ton of talent on this team and everybody knows that when [people] step on the field, that they’re gonna be able to play at a high level. So, when one person goes down we’re always confident in the next person that’s gonna step up. We know we can play at a high level, play smart, and run our offense together.”
After losing in CIF finals last year, Flemming said the team is ready to win the championship.
“We’re not satisfied with just a few wins,” Flemming said. “It’s all business when we’re here and our practices are always really high intensity. I want us to go further, and play well in the CIFs. We want to go back and win this year to prove that we can finish what we started last year.”
Brownlee said that the team will continue to play and practice at a high intensity.
“We have a tough couple of games coming up, but we can definitely beat them if we play how we know we can,” Brownlee said. “During practices [we’ll] focus on running offense at a high level and making sure we can maintain possession of the ball. There’s definitely a lot of motivation from last year after losing in the championship. That’s definitely always going to be in the back of our minds. But we have so much talent on this team this year, we [have to] keep up that hard work, keep building chemistry, and keep working.”
