Dylan Keck, COM 250 Reporter & Shayne Edwards, COM 303 Editor
A women’s lacrosse team has 12 players on the field at one time. The 2016 Berry women’s lacrosse team has 16 players on their roster.
According to head coach Shaun Williamson, the Berry women’s lacrosse team tends to fluctuate between 15 and 20 players. Although the Vikings are used to a small roster, the challenge remains for the team to endure a full schedule with only four substitutes in a 15-game regular season.
“It’s the nature of the sport right now,” Williamson said. “With large Division I schools over-recruiting with rosters of 30 or more players, it has a trickle effect on the lower women’s lacrosse divisions.”
The team began the season with 18 players, but has dropped to 16 players over the course of the year. The team is dramatically smaller in comparison. Last year, six seniors graduated but only four freshmen stepped up to fill the empty positions.
Like most sports, the lack of players and substitutes for Berry lacrosse can affect the speed and intensity of gameplay as well as the overall strategy heading into games.
“It may force us to slow the ball down at times and try to slow the pace of the game, especially on back-to-back game days,” Williamson said. “We just have to be smarter on how we recover after games.”
The practice field is what the numbers issue affects the most. With so few players, the team cannot have full scrimmages and can rarely scrimmage on half of the field. This makes simulating game-like scenarios almost impossible.
However, Berry has adjusted to practicing without a full roster and has found effective strategies to combat the adversity.
“We took a more fundamental approach in the fall,” Williamson said. “Instead of focusing on what offensive schemes we were going to run, we focused on refining the fundamental aspects of the game.”
The team has also taken extra precautions to combat muscle fatigue and prevent injuries that could be detrimental later in the season by requiring techniques like ice baths and yoga. Williamson said the team’s goal has been for the team’s conditioning and overall play to peak as the postseason begins.
“It requires a lot of preparation,” junior defender Emily Richardson said. “We have to condition well but also balance it and find the line where we don’t wear ourselves out.”
The players are constantly learning how to adapt to the problems that come with playing on a small team.
“We just know we are going to have to work our butts off,” junior attack Kelsey McAnnally said. “But that pushes everybody too. We know we have to step up and give our all every time.”
Another part of having a smaller team is the stronger sense of community that forms between players.
“We know that we are depending on each other, so it makes us push through the struggle and work harder for one another,” sophomore Shadae Williams said.
The lack of players is not unique to Berry’s women’s lacrosse team, but is a problem in all of Division III women’s lacrosse.
“Even though we are a small roster, we are pretty solid as a team and have some very talented players,” Williamson said. “We compete well in every game we play.”
The only real solution to a small roster is recruiting.
“The goal for next year is to be over 22-23 girls on the roster, which will obviously help in practice but will mainly give us more depth for seasons to come,” Williamson said.