For the first time in its history, the Old Rochester Regional girls lacrosse team is first in the league. The team has also accomplished one of three goals – qualifying for the South Coast Conference tournament.

Accomplishing its other two goals – winning the league and making it to the state tournament – are within reach, but Coach Chris Tresca says the girls have to stay on their toes.

“There aren’t enough girls always competing hard,” said Tresca. “We haven’t yet played a game where they’ve won 50 minutes.”

The girls are 9-1-1 halfway through the season with an eight game winning streak. Many games, said Tresca, have started out with a lead in the first half, but in the second half the girls lose some of their competitive edge. The result has been some very close wins.

Part of that comes down to a lot of young players. Half of the girls are new this year and only half of last year’s starters are back after the rest graduated at the end of last season.

Tresca said the team has many strong individual players, a result of youth and club leagues, but they have had to learn to work together.

Captains Bailey Truesdale, Mikayla Demanche and Madison Thomson say they’ve seen significant improvement since the beginning of the season.

“We got off to a rough start. As the season has gone on, we’ve seen a lot of improvement,” said Truesdale.

Demanche agreed.

“We’re getting better technically. We’re playing a lot smarter,” she said.

Good communication has contributed to that.

“We have a lot of team talks,” said Thomson. “That’s our go to.”

Going forward, however, the team will need to stay motivated despite its successes to date.

“We’ve got a tough stretch of games. We’ve got to be on our A game,” said Tresca. “We’re not experienced enough not to put our best effort out there.”