The lacrosse team will open its 2022 season against Keller on Feb. 28 at the McInnish Sports Complex at 7: p.m. 

“For the past few years we haven’t had many players, and [lacrosse] kind of died off in the Lewisville area,” senior defense Ryan Desen said. “Since then, we’ve either had to combine with other teams or just struggle through the season — we haven’t really had any good chances [at playing] well [competitively] for about the past five years.”

The team’s 2021 record was 5-5, with its greatest win being a 19-point lead. Last year’s team consisted of 12 players while this year’s has 19, with nine who are returning. Eight of the 10 new players are from the Denton-Guyer team, which had to combine with the Hebron team due to their small size. 

“Last year we had a very small team, so practice was very tight — there weren’t a lot of breaks for everyone, and there wasn’t a lot of team building,” sophomore attack KJ Seale said. “There’s a lot more team building this year because we have [players] from Denton which is more interesting. It’s a lot more fun to play with more guys — it allows us to do bigger drills and more runs on plays.” 

In addition to new players as a result of combining teams, lacrosse has also undergone personnel changes with a new coach. Head coach Brendan Carney transferred from Flower Mound High School where he previously coached for four years.

“[The team and I] got together a handful of times during the fall season,” Carney said. “We just did a lot of playing around [since] I didn’t know any of the players to see who can do what.” 

The team practices from 6-7:30 p.m. at the Josey Ranch Sports Complex or McInnish Sports Complex. Practice dates are determined by game days, which vary from week to week. Lacrosse is not sponsored by Texas’ University Interscholastic League (UIL), so the team’s games and tournaments are organized by the Texas High School Lacrosse League and team coaches. Hebron is in the Class D division based on team size, school size and the team’s overall success rate.

“We’re extremely fast,” Carney said. “There [are] a couple different styles in our sport, and one of them is called ‘run and gun’ style. I truly believe we’re going to be able to play that style, because we have some really fast players on our team this year.”

The team’s 2022 season is set to consist of 11 games — eight non-district and three district games. District rankings will determine if the team qualifies for playoffs; they must win all their district games to advance. 

“[I hope we] go to state,” Desen said. “We had a really close chance of going last year — our team was good, but we lost [our] last game. If we had won that game, we were guaranteed [a spot at state].” 

The final game of the season is scheduled for April 19 against Trinity Valley School, a team that advanced to state in 2021. 

“We’re excited for the season,” Carney said. “The team looks good and we’ve got kids that have been playing for a while now, [so] we have a very good core of our team which I’m excited for.”