Spring break is often a time to relax and take a break from school and sports, but for the boy’s and girl’s lacrosse teams, this break was quite the opposite.

Over spring break, the boy’s lacrosse team stayed at Casa Grande in Arizona with Trilogy Lacrosse and played two teams, while the girl’s team practiced at UCSB and played the Cate School in California. Despite both teams losing, the teams played larger difficult schools and said they learned a lot through the experience. After seeing some of the more competitive schools play, AHS junior Robbie Francis said, “I learned what it takes to be a good lacrosse player.”

In addition, both teams learned new drills, plays, skills, and got the opportunity to compete with teams outside of Colorado. After working together all week, they built up their team chemistry. On the girl’s trip, parts of the junior varsity and varsity team were combined to create one Aspen team.

According to AHS junior Sydney Forster, this unusual makeup of the team, made it more difficult for them to play together.

“It was kind of a bummer because we usually don’t play with the group of girls that we had, so it was a lot of team chemistry that we had to form on the spot which was hard. People were in new positions,” Forster said.

By the end of the trip, the girl’s team connected more and worked together better. Because of all the interaction between grades, many players bonded and learned more about their teammates.

AHS freshman, Hannah Zanin saw how all the time spent together affected the team as a whole.  

“We all figured out each other’s strengths and weaknesses and got to know each other better,” Zanin said.

Their game against Cate was competitive even after a few goals were called back, but only having one sub and players in new positions made it difficult to beat the California boarding school. Jessica Rae Owings, the AHS girl’s lacrosse coach believes the outcome of the game would have been different with the whole team present.

“I think it would be great if we could get more of our players to commit to traveling to spring break,” Owings said. “I think having to put people in different positions, as much as they are versatile, it would be great if we could have our team show up for those kind of games and I would be completely confident that we could beat them tomorrow.”

The boy’s trip had a similar experience with challenging teams and were able to develop a stronger team by the end of the week. After losing all their games to very skilled teams they learned to work together more.

“There were some times when we might have not gotten along but in the end we all learned more about each other and how to be a better team,” Francis said.

Freshman Robbie Fitzgerald also added,

“The most important thing I learned over the duration of the trip was that people need their space once in awhile.”

Every day the players woke up at 6:30 a.m. and played five to six hours of lacrosse in 80 degree temperatures and above. While there, they played Fairview, a 5A team from Boulder, West Lin, a 6A team from Oregon, and Holderness, a prep school from New Hampshire. Since they did not have a goalie, they learned to play through adversity. The AHS head coach, Dave Miller, noticed other lessons learned during the trip.

“But we also learned that lacrosse is more than shooting and scoring,” Miller said. “It is tradition, it is teamwork, it is preparation and it is sacrifice.”

The entire AHS lacrosse program benefited a lot from these spring break trips so be sure to watch out for them as they keep working hard and hopefully make their way to playoffs.