Balanced Team Viewed As Lacrosse Strength

After a month of practice, the Varsity lacrosse squad has begun to emerge from the "unknown quantity" stage and show indications of a better season than last year's bottom-heavy record would indicate as the usual lot of Crimson stickmen.

According to Coach Ben Martin, who has just started his first season as crimson inventor, spirit and balance are the two elments that may carry this spring's undermanned and relatively undersized squad through to a successful season.

Pillars of the defense this year, Martin said, will be aggressive Don Wilson and Johnnie Moot, who should be fully as dependable as they were last spring. George Hanford has left the nets to serve as Yardling coach, however, and Bill Wright will not find it easy to fill his All-New England shoes.

Leading the midfielders will be Captain Wally Fenn, whose speed and hard shooting should be complemented by the steady play of Cari Sullivan and Tom Conlin in this department.

With Sumner Simmons the only letter man returning to the forward position, the attackers were classed by Martin as the Weakest branch of the squad. Coming up from last year's Freshman team, however, Joe Healey and Dink Donahue may become the nucleus of a potentially threatening front line.

Facing substantially the same schedule as last year, the stickmen will meet a series of larger and more powerful oppents. Since lacrosse is a major sport in the South and since many colleges are now stressing it as a conditioner for the Army, the Crimson squad of 30 men expects to be outnumbered in almost every encounter.

Although this handcap was serious enough last year, it will jeopardize the stickmen's chances even more this season, now that a new unlimited substitution rule has gone into effect. According to Martin, the team is hoping that stamina can take the place of numbers.

In their annual spring trip to the sunny south, the squad will face Pennsylvania which was described by Fenn as "In our class." Navy and the University of Maryland, the other opponents, have never been downed by the Crimson, and since the team will not have a field on which to practice until it makes the Southern trip, there seems to be little chance that the jinx will be broken this spring.