The MFJS Reporter — Winter 2020 T-R

The fans from both teams bundled up as the wind gusted through Peter Barton lacrosse stadium. The players were warm and everyone could feel the heat before the first face off.

Sam Thacker, a freshman on the women’s lacrosse team said, “lacrosse is such a small community it was awesome seeing so many fans from both teams. I knew some Delaware people from home and it was nice to see how well parents from opposing teams get along.” 

While the fans in the crowd may have gotten along, the tension on the field was heightened as the players took the field. The pioneers finished with a 10-5 record in 2019 and were looking to start 2020 off with a bang.

The pioneers have a young team this year as they graduated a lot of key players like Jon Ober, Austin French, Colton Jackson and Dylan Gaines in 2019. John Gallant, the newest addition to the coaching staff has no doubts that they’ll be able to keep up with the more vetran players throughout the season. 

The pioneers started five freshman in their scrimmage Friday afternoon, and four of them started on the defensive end.

“The freshman have done a great job preparing themselves for the season and that’s why we played them so early,” Gallant said. 

Delaware quickly got up on the pioneers 5-0 as the vetran offence struggled to score. Freshman defender and Colorado native Malik Sparrow came through as he took the ball down the field to score and put the pioneers on the board. 

Soon enough, senior Ethan Walker made his presence clear as he dodged his defender up top and ripped a shot right past the Blue hens goalie. 

Delaware didn’t take the two quick ones from the pioneers lightly and continued their scoring run to put them up 9-2 at the half. Despite the score, the defence played a solid first half.

“We gave up a lot of shots yeah, but we also gave up a lot of shots that we wanted them to have and we did a good job of giving them harder angles to shoot from,” Gallant said. 

The second half started with a bang from the pioneers offence. Walker, Ted Sullivan, Schuyler Blair and freshman JJ Sillstrop helped the pioneers start a comeback and led the score to 13-7 for the Blue Hens at the end of the third quarter. 

Gallant’s defence stepped up tremendously and freshman defender Adam Hangland was a key in getting the defence fired up. 

Hangland, a Colorado native was the last to commit to their program in the summer for this year. Starting had him nervous, but that didn’t stop him from coming up big in the game. 

“The leadership from the older guys and looking around the locker room at the seniors helps a lot. I also try to forget I’m a freshman and that I belong on the field,” Hangland said.

As the fourth quarter began, the tension was building. The pioneers offence struggled to score, and Delaware led by their scoring powerhouses Charlie Kitchen and freshman Mike Robinson led the Blue hens to their 18-7 victory.

Despite the loss, the pioneers felt they were able to use this game as a refocusing lesson for the upcoming season. The pioneers have some big name schools like Duke and UNC on their 2020 schedule early this season.

The veteran coaching staff knows that they have a lot to work on before the season starts, but they’re in a pretty solid spot. 

“Focus on the process. Our process offensively is ball movement and defensively is communication. We play to an odd number and so we can’t look at the result from our scrimmage and we know we win or lose that game and we’re still 0-0 today,” said Gallant.