The Oswego State field hockey team is starting the season out strong with a five-game winning streak, erasing last season’s forgetful record  out of their memory.

Last year, the team had an overall record of 3-11. This year, the team decided to take a different approach to the season by working on their communication and motivation skills.  They believe this adjustment will help them start to gain an upper hand against other teams.

“I think we’ve gotten some more athletic players in the mix,” said field hockey head coach, Brandi Lusk. “If you were to watch film on previous teams they really lacked motivation.”

After graduating from SUNY Cortland in 2007, Lusk started coaching for both the Oswego State Lakers field hockey and women’s lacrosse teams.

According to Lusk, she’s seen significant improvement with her teams year after year.  

The players show a significant amount of passion for the game on the field, even during practices, which makes it easier for them to work together.

During practice, the team is full of energy and excitement as they communicate with each other and cheer on their teammates during conditioning exercises. Lusk tries to get them to communicate as if they were actually playing a game, which hopefully contributes to their on field success for this season.

“I think this year we have a better mentality with coming in and wanting a better season,” said midfielder Monica Harvey. “Last year, we lost the first game and it just went all downhill from there, but now that we started off winning we just want to keep it going.”

Harvey added that she thinks the team has great movement and has improved on getting shots in, but believes that they can still work on finishing their chances.

She also said that the team came in more motivated and ready to win this season, which helped get them into a game winning mentality.

“We had a good lineup of people that we knew we could compete against for the team so we were expecting to win the games that we won,” Harvey said. “We knew it was going to be harder than just going out there and playing the game.”

Harvey so far has two goals on the season and is determined to keep playing her hardest to continue to dominate the field.

According to Lusk, the team is taking a more tactical approach with team development this season. Lusk also added that she is working on the team’s communication skills.

“We’re trying to have open communication and understand that people have different communication styles,” Lusk said.

Goalie Sarita Charap expressed that she was happy to be back on the field after taking time off last season, due to medical concerns.

“This year we’re really more aggressive and we really go to the ball better,” Charap said. “It was a little hard getting back into it because I hadn’t played in so long but I’m more confident in myself.The program has definitely made me more of a collegiate player than just a player coming out of high school. I feel more confident for myself.”

The field hockey team last had an undefeated season in 1971 with a finishing record of 8-0. This year, the Lakers are determined to redeem themselves after years of being the underdogs.

The Lakers have failed to attain a winning season since 1985. According to Lusk, the team’s main goal is to reach that, but also a run in the SUNYAC playoffs is on their mind.

“We’re undefeated right now, which is awesome,  but our only weakness would be if we became complacent,” Lusk said. “Every day we have to come to practice willing to work hard and keep wanting to execute things.”

According to Lusk, the girls are becoming strong competitors and athletes and she attributes their success to them just being happy to be on the field and playing the game.

A positive atmosphere in the locker can lead to great success on the field and this rings true for the undefeated Oswego State Lakers.

This fresh approach has benefited the team in more ways than one.

“They’re willing to learn this year and they’re willing to take risks this year and they’re really receptive to new ideas and most importantly, executing those new ideas,” Lusk said. “You have to be very detail-oriented and explain a lot but once they understand it, they’re more into executing everything.”

Oswego State will be playing against the Morrisville State Mustangs on Wednesday to try to reach the six-win plateau, something they haven’t done since 2014.

The Lakers were able to knock off the Mustangs 6-2 in their last meeting and look to improve to 6-0 on the season.