A couple of Saturdays ago, the Lady Lions travelled to Blauvelt, NY to scrimmage the Dominican Chargers. It is barely an hour drive from Molloy, on a Saturday morning. It was cold but sunny, for what seemed like the first time in weeks. Since we did not encounter any major traffic snarls, we had enough time to stop at a scenic overlook alongside the Palisades Parkway.

The Scrimmage against Dominican went fairly well. We started slowly and made more than a few mistakes. But we improved as the day went on. And for the first live competition of the season, I thought overall, we made some good progress. It felt great to be back on the sideline coaching against an opponent. The players seemed happy to be competing again, too. We definitely have to improve in several areas, if we are going to become the kind of team we want to be, and think we can be. But there were enough good things, for me to remain positive about our prospects.

We had our Face Off Luncheon along with the Men’s Lacrosse Team, at Kasey’s Kitchen in Rockville Centre, on Sunday. Both teams raised a lot of money, and it seemed like everyone enjoyed themselves. Getting back to practice last week, it got better as the week went on. As our scrimmage against Adelphi approached, it almost felt like we were preparing for a regular season game.

This past Saturday morning, we hopped in the vans and made the short drive to Adelphi University in Garden City. With overcast skies it felt colder than the high forties. I had been worried that we would be intimidated by Adelphi’s reputation and high preseason national ranking (I think 5th). We did not play that way, though. The Lions were able to run with the Panthers, throughout the day. But as the scrimmage went on, Adelphi was the more skilled and more disciplined team, looking worthy of the preseason ranking. Once again, we turned the ball over, far too many times. But our team battled hard, all the way, and while the Panthers ended up comfortably ahead on the scoreboard, physically the game was much closer. Playing against strong competition, should only make us better.

So after almost a month of practice and two scrimmages, I still feel good about this team. Both scrimmages were good exercises for us. Our first game is only 9 days from today. We have plenty of work to do, so let’s get to it!

Go LIONS!