The rising excitement for the spring season of boys lacrosse has not been a disappointment thus far, as many fans of AHS lacrosse team has seen a nearly perfect performance in the preseason along with some good wins in the early regular season.

In comparison to last year, where the team lost their first six games, AHS is already off to a better start.

“Currently, we have more than 20 seniors on the team. We benefit from their experience, their maturity, and strong work ethic,” coach Michael Mathis said.

For example, they had strong performances so far in games against Washington-Lee and Mount Vernon, where they pulled off a victory in both games.

With this positive early performance, the sport has caught the eye of many more fans who wish to see the team succeed.

However, AHS has faced both struggle and setback in a variety of ways during the early season.

This was met during their last few games against West Potomac, T.C Williams, and Hayfield, where they lost each game 6-16, 4-12, and 6-11 respectively.

There could have been many reasons as to why the lacrosse team have experienced an early-season slump, but for many of the lacrosse fans it has not been enough to stop showing their support.

However, this is not entirely bad news on the lacrosse team, as after their string of defeats, the team managed to pull a victory against Mount Vernon on March 25 by a score of 19-12.

A very important job as a coach is to see where your team went wrong and see how those weak points impacted the team’s performance during a game.

“We face each day and game once at a time and do nothing unique. [This season], we have the motto “Perfect Simple,” which signifies our hard work to stay focused on the fundamentals,” Mathis said.

But as with any team, the coach also has to find ways to overcome mistakes and improve before the beginning of postseason.

But for some of the optimistic fans of the lacrosse team, their victory against Mt. Vernon is more than enough to say that the team is able to show resilience and come back to win the next game after a tough string of losses.

In order to do so, Mathis has his team review past games in order to identify past mistakes and correct them for future games.

There were specific games in which performance was not as strong which can serve as a learning experience for the team’s upcoming games, such as when they are set to face Falls Church in their first game in the Spring Tournament on April 13.

In the beginning of any sports season, every team understands that some teams will be much harder to beat than others, and for lacrosse those teams

are predicted to be T.C. Williams and West Potomac. So far the two teams have both had the most success in the district.

Even after that early season slump many lacrosse fans are confident that the team will come back from this and become a team that can hopefully succeed in the postseason.

“[Each practice], we encourage the team to have a growth mindset and pick one thing to improve upon each and every day,” Mathis said.