Athlete of the Week: Griffin Fries

Q&A with Junior Griffin Fries, Varsity Lacrosse Player

Q: What do you think your role is this year on Varsity?
A: “Last year and freshman year I didn’t have to be a leader, and now that I am an upperclassmen I feel like there is more of a leadership role that comes with it, like obviously you have to score goals and stuff but you also have to get the offense going and be a leader, not necessarily a vocal leader but a leader through your actions.”
Q: What have you been working on so far in preseason to get ready?

A: “Preseason we did a lot of stickwork to get all the rust off, but we started tryouts monday and we are doing a lot of scrimmaging and stuff to get the flow going again so it’s been a lot of offense vs. defense [drills].”

Q: Do you think this year’s team will be different than last?
A: “Yeah, I actually think we are lot more experienced this year than we were last year because we only lost [alumni] Tripp Mohr and William Larson who were two attacking mids and they were the only senior starters we lost. They scored something like 300 combined goals last season so it’s kind of hard to replace them but at the same time our whole starting defense is coming back and they were considered young last year so now they have a lot more experience this year so I think well be good.”

Q: Are the now-seniors preparing you to be a senior leader next year?
A: “No, not necessarily like everyone knows what you have to do as a senior and [seniors] don’t really have to say much to tell the juniors what to do next year, they kind of already know what to do, so we’ll just flow into it and start leading as a senior.”

Q: Do you think you have a better offense/defense this year?
A: “I don’t know if I would say our offense is better than last year, but were like really good, we have [senior] Cameron Ream back this year who was injured last year, we have a Freshman, Cade Eldred who’s really good, and on attack we have me, Matt McGannon, Charles Boerger we all work well together. Our defense, like I said has a lot more experience this year so I think they are going to be a lot better this year, they were pretty raw last year because a lot of them had just started playing lacrosse but were good athletes, but now they have the stick skills going, so they’ll be good.”

Q: What are you guys going to do this year to prepare for lacrosse after losing to them last year?
A: “Honestly, I don’t think Rockhurst is our biggest threat this year, I think it’s going to be us and Pembroke Hill, so that being said, you have to prepare for everyone the same way because it’s such a long season that anyone can beat anyone at anytime. So we just have to prepare for [Rockhurst] like any other team.”

Q: Do you think there is any sort of adjustment period at the beginning of the season?
A: “Yeah definitely, there’s kind of like a little bit of time to get into new positions and adjust to offense and defense.”

Q: Is the coaching staff different this year?
A: “We actually lost Coach Bolin who was the varsity assistant but we still have Coach Leff and Coach Garrett, so they are the two varsity coaches now.”

Q: For you, what are your goals for the season?
A: “I don’t really have any scoring goals, as long as we win the championship I’ll be happy so I don’t really care how many goals I score as long as we get a ring.”