The club lacrosse team has started the season thinking positively.
“Our goal is to win all the games we play,” team president Stephen Ziegele said. “It’s a little different than years past because we have a better team this year.”
Through six Great Lakes Lacrosse League games, the team is 4-2 and is ranked fourth in the standings out of 33 total teams.
Ziegele said a big reason why the team is much better now is because of players like sophomore Jason Willms.
“[Willms] is probably one of our best players,” Ziegele said. “He’s been playing lacrosse for a long time. He’s one of the captains on our team and he’s only a sophomore.”
Willms has embraced the leadership role he’s taken with the team. After playing lacrosse in high school, Willms and a few of his old teammates have come to UW-Whitewater looking to turn things around.
“We wanted to bring a different attitude,” Willms said. “We’ve got a lot of new players this year who can give us a chance to win a lot more games this year.”
Willms plays defense for the team, which has been the squad’s strong suit so far this spring. Through the first four GLLL games, the team won all four and outscored its opponents 32-13. Despite the hot start, the past two games have resulted in losses to UW-Madison’s Red and White teams.
The 6-4 loss to the Red team wasn’t what the team was hoping for, but they are one of the hotter teams in the GLLL, sitting at 5-0.
However, the loss to the White team was a bit of an upset. The 7-5 loss downed UW-Whitewater’s team to 4-2 in league play, while pushing UW-Madison White’s record to 2-3.
“I wouldn’t say we’re playing as good as we can,” Willms said. “I think we’re pretty good. We’re getting a lot more guys coming to practice, so we can have a lot more structure as opposed to going out there and just playing schoolyard lacrosse.”
After last year’s consolation bracket finish in the GLLL tournament, Willms was excited about this year’s team and its chances this time around.
“I think we have a chance to go pretty far just because of how much better we’ve gotten,” Willms said. “I think we can make a run just because if we get everyone on the same page, we have the players who can compete with anybody.”
The team’s next two games are Sunday against (3-3) UW-Stevens Point and (5-1) St. Norbert.