This year’s boys and girls lacrosse teams feel special. Last year, the boys lacrosse team did not live up to the hype by finishing 2-15, but this year’s team feels different. This year’s team has no seniors but has a lot of young talent. I wanted to learn more about this, so I sat down with junior lacrosse stars Thibaut Briquet and Luke Samaha to learn more about the team and their upcoming season.
Briquet said he is very excited for this season, and he is very happy with all of the talent that they have. Samaha shared the same excitement about their talent this year. I asked them both about their picks for team MVP this year, and the answer was the same for both: star junior Miles Rizor is expected to have another big year for the team.
The team has also struggled with injuries early on in the season as up-and-coming junior Paul Gubanich suffered an injury during the off-season but is now making his way back. His status for the season is unknown as of right now, but if he were to make it back in time for some games this season, his presence would definitely be felt. “Gubanich is going to play a real pivotal role in our team, so we need him back,” said junior Luke Samaha.
Despite being overloaded with many talented juniors on the roster, there are so many up-and-coming stars in the freshmen class this year. Ben Maeder and Eli Kampel will certainly be amazing additions to the defense this year, as well as Donovan Maloney and William Liu playing pivotal roles in the team this year.
Samaha and Briquet are also very pleased with their coaching staff this year stating, “We might need to do an entire interview talking about how amazing our coaches are.” Who said this quote
The team also has some upperclassmen just starting out their lacrosse career, but according to Samaha the two who stand out the most are Nathan Asfaw and Siddhant Chunduri saying their connection is just like Messi and Neymar..
Overall I believe this year’s boys lacrosse team is going to do amazing things and ultimately look to make a state championship run.
I also believe that the girls lacrosse team will do amazing things this year, and the team certainly has the talent to do it. I wanted to have a better understanding of this year’s team, so I decided to reach out to junior lacrosse star Siena Motch to ask her about this upcoming season and how she believes the team will do. Motch said,“We lost some important seniors from last season, but we have a lot of freshmen coming in this year, and we are switching to zone defense, which is a big change but should help us out. Leadership roles are going to need to be filled, and if we can do that we should have a solid season.”
Last year the girls lacrosse team finished 6-10 heading into the tournament. In the first round, the team had to play Summit Country Day. Motch said that the team wanted to play Summit again because they had lost to them earlier in the season. Motch also said that Summit thought that they were definitely going to beat them, but the Stingers came out on top and got revenge against the Knights from earlier in the season and advanced to the second round. Unfortunately for Seven Hills, they played a very talented and tough team in Indian Hill in the second round and lost.
Overall, I think this will be a great season for both of the Seven Hills lacrosse teams and both teams will make great improvements from last season.
