Women’s lacrosse looks to repeat as PAC Champions

The Eastern women’s lacrosse team is looking like PAC Champions again, averaging a little over 15 goals a game in the past month. Junior Jessie Basch, first-year Grace Griffith and junior Erin Reimel are leading the Eagles attack, each scoring over 30 points this season.

“My biggest hopes for this season are to clean up the ground balls in the midfield and execute our plays well on offense,” Griffith said.

Being a team without any senior leadership, everyone on the women’s lacrosse team has had to step up as a leader this season.

“This season has been a learning experience,” junior Katie Choquette said. “We are a young team. [Being young] has made us work extra hard to become better lacrosse players.”

With tough PAC opponents coming up, the Eagles know the season is far from over.

“We need to execute in games what we learn in practice,” Choquette said. “Staying focused and playing our game will allow us to be successful in this home stretch.”

So far the Eagles have been more than impressive. The Eagles are first in the PAC with only one loss coming from Cabrini earlier in the season. Since then the Eagles have been on a roll.

“We have been scoring a lot more [lately] because our offense has become more confident and we’ve learned how to read each other better,” Griffith said.

The Eagles have showcased their strong defense lately as opponents have averaged only five goals a game over the past six games.

“[My goal this season is to] keep encouraging our defense to pressure the ball the whole game,” Griffith said.

The pressure of Eastern’s defense will be a key component for them to repeat as PAC Champions.

“It’s not an easy road to the championship,” Choquette said.

The home stretch for the Eagles includes tough matchups against Misericordia University and Centenary College. The Eagles hope to win these important games and create momentum going into the playoffs.

“This is our last year in the PAC,” Choquette said. “We want to leave the PAC with a [championship] win.”

With the way the Eagles are playing lately, it is hard not to see the championship coming home to Eastern.