This week the Review sat down with men’s lacrosse seniors Kinori Rosnow and Eric Hager to discuss their enthusiasm for the upcoming season, the impact they expect rook­ies and sophomores to have on the team and the ways the squad has changed since last year.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How excited are you and the team for the upcoming season?

Kinori Rosnow: Extremely. We have a very different dynamic this year, and I’m excited to see how that translates to the field. This year is my last year, and it’s a team that I’m really excited to work with.

Eric Hager: I’m so incredibly ex­cited. We have a lot of young talent on the team. I think that our fresh­man class, our sophomore class and our junior class — they’re all very promising players and great ath­letes. There are only three of us in the senior class so we really need their help, and I think they’ve been doing a great job of supporting us.

What will the impact of losing last year’s leading scorers [Alex Wagman, OC ’16, and Nick Lo­bley, OC ’16] have on this year’s team?

EH: The fact that we don’t have two players who account for 75 percent of our goals forces us to include everybody. It forces ev­erybody to contribute. I’m really excited to see how that develops throughout the season.

What is the team dynamic like with just a few seniors?

KR: It requires everyone to take roles at any given time. You don’t al­ways have to be the leader in every situation. But as a result, everyone is stepping up, and it’s harder to fall through the cracks when you have a role like that. Even if it’s a small thing like just making sure gear gets out on the field, you can’t just be passive.

What are the differences between last year’s and this year’s team?

KR: Last year, we had a lot of talent, and so that talent was very pointed in specific directions. The dynamic this year has been every­body getting better at everything they do. It feels like we are more rounded.

EH: There’s no LeBron James on the team, so to speak. [We can’t] pass him the ball and [think] he’s going to score every goal. Everybody has to do their job. I think that the difference … is that this year’s team is a team. Sometimes I question whether that was the case last year.

What are your team’s goals for the season?

KR: The goal that seems to be the trend from this team is that we want to be a team that works together. We have different character goals. Some of them involve attention to detail, for example. We try to keep ourselves ordered and organized at all times.

EH: There are big goals and then smaller, more attainable goals. We can always say our goal is to win a national championship, but there are steps to that — Little things spe­cific to lacrosse, like clearing. [We want] a higher clearing percentage than we [had] last year. There are so many little goals that we have to achieve if we want to get to where we want to be.

How will the non-conference schedule prepare your team for success in the North Coast Ath­letic Conference?

KR: We have good, solid athlet­ic competition out of conference. It will help us work out the kinks and see another group of guys. We had a scrimmage this past week­end, and it showed us a few things that we can work out immediately.

EH: Every single team we play is different, and getting exposure to as many different playing styles as possible is incremental to get­ting better. The out-of-conference games change for us every year, so we are always experiencing some­thing new.

What are your thoughts on the team’s first two games this weekend against John Carroll University and Baldwin Wallace University?

KR: [In] the John Carroll game, [it] will be fun to see how we can adjust in-game because we don’t know much about them. The Baldwin Wallace game is going to be indicative of how well we have grown from last year.

What will it take to make the conference tournament and continue to see this program improve?

KR: It’s going to come down to execution. I feel like we are push­ing each other and ourselves. If we just execute correctly, we can win any game on any given day.

EH: It’s about just going in and realizing that you can beat any team you play. It really comes down to believing you can win.

Interview by Darren Zaslau, Sports editor