The College of Wooster women's lacrosse team has the talent and the leadership to potentially make a run for the North Coast Athletic Conference Championship.
That's certainly the goal for its captains and upperclassmen with a roster that should have on the field a mixture of upper-and underclassmen.
"Our first-year class is pretty talented," coach Liz Ford said. "We'll probably see a lot of those kids make an impact in some capacity this year. And it's nice to have that returning group who has that experience and can help them pull themselves up to the level of what we're looking for quickly and easily."
This year's team features five seniors. Clare Leithauser, Hannah Shaw and Britta Treu are team captains while Jill Murray and Anna Truong round out the class and bring leadership to the table as well.
"That senior class has a lot of offer," Ford said. "Their expectations – they've said it loud and proud - being in the final game, looking for the trophy. They want that and are pushing everyone for that."
With 10 first years and nine sophomores, the team will lean on the seniors to get them in the right direction.
"Each captain is on each end of the field, so they provide leadership in a variety of ways," Ford said. "They're great in what they present on the field and great for when they're talking about what we're doing, why we're doing it and how we need to proceed.
"Even Jill and Anna, they're not captains but providing leadership. All have a good voice and lead by example, providing a lot of things for the rest of the group to see and latch on to."
Looking at this year's squad, gone is leading scorer Syd Schuster but Kenzie Morris returns for her sophomore campaign after finishing second on the team in points (53) and goals (42).
Five were named to All-NCAC Team. Aside from Schuster, four of the five return including Murray, Shaw, Morris and Leithauser.
Shaw broke Wooster's single-season and single-game draw controls records with 128 and 15, respectively. She also ranked in the top three last year in goals (38), groundballs (43) and caused turnovers (26).
Leithauser's 79 groundballs was four shy of the single-season program record, and she shared the team lead in caused turnovers (26). Murray was third on the team with 51 points and 37 goals.
The biggest question mark for this year's team may be in goal as CC Dent graduated after appearing and starting in all 18 games. Ashley Reynolds, Alex Galbraith and JG Garrison make up the goalkeeping unit this year, but the trio combined for just 3:40 of action last year.
In addition, Reynolds returns to the goalkeeper role after seeing limited time in the defensive unit in her first season.
The Scots were 13-5 overall a year ago and 4-3 in NCAC play. They ended the year against the NCAC's best, falling to Denison University once and Kenyon College twice, including in the NCAC Tournament semifinal.
In the 2023 NCAC Preseason Poll, both Denison (ranked first with 46 points and four first-place votes) and Kenyon (45) return as favorites to win the NCAC according to league coaches, while Wooster (32) ranked third.
It should be a battle for the final two spots in the conference tournament as DePauw University (26), Ohio Wesleyan University (20) and Oberlin College (18) fall within eight points of each other in the poll.
"There's five or six of us that can really pull it together, and it will be interesting to see," Ford said. "We're excited to see how everything continues to come together, but I think we've got some good-looking prospects and we're excited about what we're able to do."
The Scots open the season at home Feb. 22 when they host John Carroll University.