On November 12, members of the Bolles Girls Lacrosse team participated in the Super Girl Surf Pro Lacrosse Beach Tournament.
The tournament has been “developed as a celebration of female strength and empowerment” according to the mission statement on the Super Girl Surf Pro’s website.
Beginning in 2007, “The Super Girl Surf Pro Series is the only large-scale all-women’s action sports, esports, and lifestyle series in the world.” The four festivals are “centered around providing social, athletic, cultural, educational, business, and entertainment opportunities for young women in areas where they are traditionally underrepresented.”
Six girls on the Bolles lacrosse team joined the tournament this year as a form of team bonding before their spring season. The tournament is played on the beach where there is soft sand that beachgoers know is hard to walk in. To prepare for the terrain, the girls had a beach practice to learn how to navigate the difference between sand and turf.
The team members included Emily Commander ‘24, Brooke Trager ‘24, Abbey Wohlgemuth ‘26, Saylor Swartz ‘25, and Avabelle Hubbard ‘26.
The girls enjoyed the challenge of the game and Hubbard took away that “it is a fast-paced game, and you always have to be aggressive and ready to switch the fields on transitions as it is a very transitional game.”
The girls faced many challenges during the games, but the biggest was the weather. Commander said, “The competition was played on a very very cold and windy day at the beach, making it hard to not focus on how uncomfortable we were.”
After practice, multiple games, and lots of teamwork, they were able to pull through and win the entire competition. “We didn’t expect to win,” Trager says, “but went into the comp with a positive mindset, worked as a team, and ended up winning the whole thing.”
The team was able to work well together and improve their cooperative dynamic, which were their two main goals. Of course, in the actual gameplay, there are always elements that they can improve.
“I think if we did it again we could have practiced more on moving the ball around in such a tight space so that we could work the field more efficiently and not tire ourselves out too much,” Commander says, “But luckily, we pulled out with a win and a really cool experience, making our team chemistry even stronger!”
At the end of the competition, the players even got a chance to meet professional women’s lacrosse player Sammy Jo Tracy, a two-time national Champion and All-American at UNC. If you want to learn more about the next tournament and become involved, visit the Super Surf Girl Pro website at https://supergirlsurfpro.com/.
