The Washington and Lee women’s lacrosse team is off to a momentous start after four straight victories over top-ranked teams. Franklin and Marshall, who are ranked number four in the nation, lost big to the Generals in a 9-3 beat down. The team also beat Salisbury, who are ranked number seven in the nation, on Saturday by one goal.

According to Coach Brooke O’Brien, the team’s early-season success has been great for confidence and only makes her players want to work harder.

Midfielder Haley Tucker, ’19, says that although she is excited about the team’s four victories so far, there is always room for improvement.

“We want to peak at the end of May when it counts, so it’s all about taking each game one at a time and working hard to reach our potential,” she said.

Both O’Brien and Tucker mentioned how much work the women’s team put in during the off-season. O’Brien believes that because of this tough off-season training, the team’s overall athleticism and speed is now a huge strength of the program.

“This team put in an unprecedented amount of work while preparing during the off-season training and that work has really shown,” O’Brien said.

Tucker said that this off-season training enabled the women’s lacrosse team to compete with some of the best teams in the country.

O’Brien said seniors have made a huge impact on the team’s season. Not only have the eight seniors pushed other players hard during out-of-season training, but they have also shown strong leadership both on and off the field now that season has started.

“Each of these eight seniors since last May have had a very clear vision on what they wanted this season to be,” O’Brien said. “The seniors’ leadership is going to be one of the biggest pieces to whatever success we have this season.”

Tucker echoed this sentiment by saying the seniors have changed the culture of the W&L women’s lacrosse program which she said isn’t easy to do.