The North Central College women’s lacrosse team has found success this season under the leadership of its seniors and Head Coach Danielle Fiala, who was hired in 2015.
With hard work, the team has been very successful in the win column this season.
“All the girls have had such positive attitudes,” says Fiala. “They want to win, and they work hard to win. They want to find success together, and they do.”
One mark of success for the Cardinals this season was an NCC single-season record nine-game win streak.
“I think it was our team chemistry,” says Kailey Robbins (’16). “We’ve talked all season about really having a fire as a team and lighting that fire together and that’s something that really brought us together as a team to go towards those wins… really just everyone having that spark in them and wanting to play.”
The nine game win streak started on March 22, but was broken in a 7-13 loss against the Augustana College Vikings on April 20.
“[Augustana is] one of our biggest competitors, so it’s always fun to play in a game like that,” says Robbins. “Although the score didn’t necessarily reflect our success we felt that as a team we were really successful. We played really well together and came back in the second half and we ended up tying them in goals.”
The women’s lacrosse team fought hard against Augustana, but had a tougher time facing the Illinois Wesleyan University Titans, who handed the Cardinals their fourth loss of the season.
“Losing to Illinois Wesleyan was rough,” says Gina Fisher (’16). “The team didn’t maintain fire throughout the entire 60 minutes and Wesleyan capitalized on that. Our offense had a tough time finding the open net and our defense was getting burned on one-on-one’s.”
Two of the seniors, Fisher and Claire Norfleet (’16) have broken several individual records for NCC women’s lacrosse this season.
Norfleet broke the single-season assist record (currently at 40), and Fisher broke the single-season records for ground balls (currently at 108) and turnovers caused (currently at 60). Fisher also holds the single-season records for goals (61) and draw controls (81), both from the 2014 season.
Women’s lacrosse holds nine NCC team records, including the longest win streak and the single game record for goals tied set.
“The team records mean so much more to me than any individual record,” says Norfleet. “Those individual records would never be possible to achieve without my teammates.”
All the team’s success this season makes the future seem very bright under Coach Fiala, who is only in her first season coaching at NCC.
“I couldn’t have asked for a smoother transition of getting a new coach at the start of the season,” says Fisher. “Coach Fiala came in with a clear vision to take our team to the next level and that is exactly what she’s done. She really believed in our abilities to lead the conference and we quickly trusted in her direction. I was excited to have someone who played with such passion to come back and share her expertise.”
There are only a few games remaining in the seniors’ lacrosse careers, and they are likely hoping to hang up their cleats on a positive note.
