The Erie tiger lacrosse team makes headlines as they win the first state championship in the team’s history at Erie high school. This was a monumental day for the team as it showed off their hard work and made all the extra effort just that much more worth it. They are more than just a team and you can see that in the way they play they are more than just a team, they are a family. With most of the team being friends for a long time and have been playing on the same teams since they were young. They have great chemistry which is seen in the way they make each other better and push each other to be the best they can be. After talking to head coach Mandia he had this to say about the mood shift mid season “I think our mentality and practice changed actually when we lost that Air Academy game in the middle of the season. I wouldn’t say that we specifically ramp things up or or got and and started doing anything different when we got to the playoffs. We already had that ball rolling. After that loss with Air Academy, there are a lot of things to address in the locker room and then also on the field. And, we did a really good job of when I say we, I mean, the players. The players did a really good job of leaning into the discomfort and the adversity and working through some of the things that we needed to work through. And by the time we got to the playoffs, the culture had been reset. The practices were exactly what they needed to be. And, and, you know, we had the machine moving in the right direction by the time we got there.” After a crushing loss mid season to a very beatable team the Tigers were at their lowest, the practice after that game was a very big moment for the team as they really focused hard on what they need to do better because they are a great team who makes silly mistakes that hold them back. When at their best the team can beat anyone in 4a and maybe some teams in 5a as evident by their state championship but during the start of their season it was about making sure to get the little things right moving forward to not make those silly mistakes. This point was really driven home by mandia gathering the students on top of a hill near the field and trying to start a fire. This was a message more than anything to the team and the fire was representing that when they work together to make something happen, in this case a fire that if they work as a team they can make anything happen. Mandia also had this to say when asked about his team “I think something that, we did really well this year, specifically against teams that could go toe to toe with us, was being able to weather the storm and understand that, you know, opposing teams are going to, you know, score goals and they’re they’re going to have success, and we need to be able to respond with our own success and not be dejected because of someone else’s. And then another, like, x’s and o’s part that I think made us really, really, I think dangerous throughout the season and specifically in the playoffs was the fact that our face off guys, Ashton Karch and Tyler Keating were so dominant, the face off dot. And then we’re really structured off of face off wins, and we generate quick early offense as we sub. And I think that’s really challenging for teams to defend. 1, because there’s a lot of moving parts, and 2, because our attack line is so skilled. There’s, you know, 3 of our best players on the field and ready to score on you right away. And I think we just got better and better at dominating that phase of the game this year. Allowing us to run away with games in the second second half.” This shows that the tigers theme this year was really focusing on the little things and the mental side of them game more than anything, especially after a hard crushing loss in double overtime last year in the state championship which really showed the team that it wasn’t about skill because we have some of the best players in the state on our team but it was more about refining everything we have worked on so far. This is especially evident in the fact that we have so many players getting decision one offers to play lacrosse and we had the most players picked for the all state game for 4a lacrosse and head coach Mandia won the head coach of the year award from chasa. We even had one player picked for the all American lacrosse team this year which is almost never seen for a 4a team. Liam Connors, one of our starting attack men and an integral part of our team was selected as an all American lacrosse player. This really hits the idea home as the theme for this season was less about developing skills but more about refining them and working better as a team. As seen in how they play they are more than just a team they are a family which is especially evident in their chant they do before every game when they yell mitakia which basically means my family. This is an important aspect of our team that the coaches make sure to enforce every practice and game as they say it’s more than just a game or a team, It’s about family.
