The Northampton girls lacrosse team drew a tough assignment for their first game of the 2022 season when the defending District XI AA champions, Southern Lehigh, came to town last Friday.

At halftime, one of the officials noted, “Some of these girls are faster than the D3 (NCAA Division 3) girls that we referee.”

Under those circumstances, it was of little surprise that the K-Kids came out on the wrong side of a 21-3 score.

Sophomore Ella Steirer had all three goals for the Northampton.

Head coach Carrie Saul has modest goals for the team this season.

“To improve a little each day,” she said. “We definitely have small numbers. We only have 18 (players) so we only have a varsity program this year. We have some kids that have never played before. So we just want to take it day-by-day.”

The girls lacrosse program has gotten off to a rocky start ever since it was approved to transition from a club sport in 2019 to a full varsity sport in 2020. Of course, COVID canceled all spring sports in 2020, denying the team a true inaugural season. Saul is also the third head coach for the team in the last four years.

While Saul is an outstanding coach and has built a consistent winner in Northampton’s field hockey program, it is clear that she has taken on the lacrosse coaching duties as way for the school to field a team while the search for dedicated program builder continues.

Neither field hockey nor lacrosse have robust youth and club programs in place to funnel plug-and-play talent into high school teams. The head coaches in those sports have to own the development path for their players, which places too much of a burden on any one person to do it for both squads.

The team did perform better in their second game of the season, a 12-7 defeat at the hands of Central, showing that they are still competing hard despite facing long odds.