Featured Athlete: Jenn Young

How long have you played lacrosse?

I have been playing lacrosse since I was a sophomore so this will be my third year, but I didn’t start out as goalie. I actually started out on offense. I would play attack, center, and midfield. Then last year, my junior year, I switched to straight defense and then goalie.

What are your expectations for the season?

I think we have a shot of making it to the play-offs and championship, because last year was a lot of a rebuilding year because we had a lot of new coaching staff and new players, so it was a revamping year. This year with a lot of key players having graduated from Sion or STA and with us being more of a cohesive team this year, we have a better chance of varsity making it to the play-offs. JV we have a chance of defending our title. Last year, we won the JV Championship so this year if we work hard like we did last year and really put forth all of our effort,we will be able to hold that title.

What made you decide to go to the Illinois Institute of Technology for college lacrosse?

I actually didn’t think I would play college lacrosse up until a few months ago. I play not only for east, but for a traveling club team, KC Blue Lions. We traveled to St. Louis, and then we traveled to Chicago, and I just kinda went to get playing experience and have some fun. But when I went to Chicago, it was a pretty big recruiting tournament called the Midwest Showcase, and we went up to Loyola and played for a weekend in November, and I had several coaches, probably eight or nine, emailing me during and after the tournament about filling out a recruit questionnaire and if I was interested in playing. So from there, Illinois Tech stood out to be because it was a technological school so they specialized in engineering and math and sciences, which is what I want to go into. All the other schools were liberal arts schools so it was more of the major of the school that was a deciding factor.

What are some of your favorite things about lacrosse?

Oh that’s a hard question. Well, I played tennis for nine years before even knowing that lacrosse was a sport. So that was a lot different because of the team aspect of the sport. It was just different. Tennis is such an individualized sport. You were it. You were fending for yourself on the court. Whereas lacrosse you have to be able to communicate and be in sync when you are playing. You could have the best group of talented people ever and it wouldn’t be as good as having one synchronized team. You have to be able to work together with all the other girls on the field. Being able to have all those girls working together in a way to get the ball down the field and score.

Do you have any pre-game rituals?

Yeah so something I usually do is before I leave for a game I’ll do 15 minutes of stretching and I’ll have a workout playlist or like a pump-up playlist on spotify, and I’ll literally have my headphones in and tell my parents or brothers or whoever is with me that I am not speaking or talking to them. I am getting in the zone and then I’ll drive to the games and have music blasting in my car and then when I get there I’ll put my headphones back in and I am just cranking [the music] out. Then once warm-ups start I’ll go over to the goal and do my warm-up.

Do you have an athlete that you look up to?

A: For the lacrosse field… Let’s see… not necessarily an athlete in particular in like NCAA or in college or in major league just because I don’t watch sports as much as I play them, so there is no particular player I look up to. It’s more just teammates that I have played with and players that I see when I am traveling. There are characteristics of each teammate that I have that I try and aspire to play like. Just playing with passion, intention, giving my all, that sort of thing.