Seniors Oliver Padilla and Ashton Throop are on the boys lacrosse team and have years of experience playing lacrosse. At the halfway point in their season, the team is now working through figuring out what has been successful for them and what has not.
Despite the experience of its senior leaders, the team also is growing their bonds with each other as new freshmen come up.
“When freshmen come up you have to take the role of being the bigger person and coaching them up,” Throop said.
This season, the team also has a new coach, Tate Ferris, who is hoping to make improvements to the team with the goal of becoming conference champions this year.
Ferris graduated from Northview in 2012 and started playing for Northview lacrosse in 7th grade. Ferris then ended up going to Limestone college, a Division II program in South Carolina for 2 years before transferring back home to play at Davenport.
“Coming in as my first year as head coach, my plan was to set a standard,” Ferris said. “I want to set goals for us to drive for, and our goals this season, and for seasons to come, is to win conference, win regionals and to win a state championship.”
Throop and Padilla have had the same coach for three years, but this year the team had to adjust to a new coach.
“Coaching has changed a lot since freshman year. It was pretty laid back but now that we have a new coach, it’s more strict rules and about changing the program,” Throop said.
Just like having new teammates, getting a new coach takes time to adapt to. The team is doing a lot better and growing together and seeing the positive difference with more practices and games under their belt.
“The beginning of the season was rough,” Padilla said. “We [were] playing higher competitions on top of having a new team, but we’re getting a lot better and are going to make a lot of progress by the end of the season.”
Throop believes that with the new coaching in place and working together, Ferris will be able to lead their team to an OK White conference championship. Ferris spends a lot of time making sure that he focuses on mentality, and that the players know it’s a team sport and they must work together.
“Whether we are winning or losing [a game], we have learned to keep fighting,” Padilla said.
Right now, the lacrosse team is placing third in their conference but still has some challenging teams they will need to beat to take first place. The team plans to continue working on fundamentals and a smarter understanding of the game.
“We got really good at competing with each other,” Padilla said. “At the beginning of the year, it was just about playing lacrosse and now we are playing to win and get better.”
Coach Ferris is looking forward to fine-tuning the returning players’ skills, and also coaching and watching new players’ hard work pay off. The team still has a ways to go until the end of their season and will continue to improve at their games in hopes of winning and keep setting the bar higher.
“I learned so much from all of the coaches that I have had growing up, and I want to spread that knowledge, and build an amazing program here at Northview,” Ferris said.
