BRUNSWICK

Whether you are a sports lover or a movie watcher, you have probably heard of the movie “Field of Dreams.” You probably remember the famous line that James Earl Jones’ character muttered multiple times to Kevin Costner’s character that goes a little like “If you build it, they will come.”

Though the movie deals with the sport of baseball and the history behind the “Chicago Black Sox,” Jones’ character-message has been applied to many inspirational moments in life, athletics involved or not.

For the Bowdoin College women’s lacrosse team, the message was clear that in order to gain the success that you want, the work has to be put in … in other words “if you build on it, success will come.”

Just a year ago Bowdoin completed the season as the No. 7 seed in the New England Small College Athletic Conference with a record of 4-6, but was knocked off in the conference quarterfinals by No. 2 Amherst, 11-5. The year before that, the Polar Bears locked up No. 3 and an 8-2 record, but found trouble once more in the conference quarterfinals as No. 6 Hamilton took the 10-9 edge to advance.

With the Polar Bears’ 2015 season underway, the black and white have kicked things off in high gear, going 3-0 to start and capturing two conference victories over Williams (11-10) and Amherst (10-6).

Previous seasons have shown that the women can play in a tough league such as the NESCAC, but this year’s season already feels different.

“We really pushed ourselves in the fall this year,” co-captain Natalie Moore said after a practice on Wednesday. “We didn’t just play a lot more lacrosse, but also fitnesswise, we had a lot more time together and just bonded from the beginning and got our sticks ready.”

“We have eight amazing seniors on the team,” other co-captain Taylor Wilson said. “The way that we’re playing, obviously Nat and I as captains feel like it was important to play a lot in the fall, but it’s been our eight seniors, the senior leadership on the team that set us up for success. We don’t want to look back on the season and say ‘what if ?’”

For Polar Bears head coach Liz Grote, leadership amongst the team has been the difference so far, something that she recognized right away.

“I think a lot of it had to do with those two, Taylor and Nat,” Grote said. “Just really leading the team in the fall, because we can’t coach them until Feb. 15th. The team really bought into playing as much as they can in the offseason, lifting, speed training and doing all of those little things. I think they were very lacrosse ready when Feb. 15th rolled around and that’s huge.”

A big win

Just this past Saturday the Polar Bears hosted what was at the time No. 1 nationally-ranked Amherst, which as previously mentioned the Bowdoin women took the four-goal edge for the victory. That win not only gave the team confidence, but a realization of how well-built the NESCAC really is.

“I think our defense really stepped up in that game,” Grote said. “We executed our game plan really well in not letting them get comfortable with the ball, because they like to slow the pace of the game down. Offensively one of our focuses is to get everybody scoring so every single person is a threat, and if you look at what we’ve done so far, we have eight or nine scorers which is perfect.”

For the players, having the experience of playing in the conference they are in gives them an idea of what kind of talent they’re up against.

“I think we’re lucky that we play in one of the toughest leagues across the board,” Wilson said. “Every team in our league is so good. Honestly during any game you have to treat it like you’re coming out against the top team in the NESCAC. As much as the rankings matter, they mean nothing in the NESCAC.”

“I definitely think it was a confidence booster,” Moore said. “But, the way we’re trying to look at it is any team in the NESCAC is obviously beatable, but also is going to be a tough game and we don’t want to take any team for granted. We’re going to go out there and act like we’re playing Amherst every time.”

The Polar Bears have braved the cold winter weather for the start of the season, but despite Mother Nature being kind this past week in regard to warmer temperatures, Bowdoin will make a trip down to Florida for two non-conference games on Monday (vs. Mount Holyoke) and Tuesday (vs. St. Lawrence). The trip begins after a road NESCAC matchup at Hamilton on Saturday. The luxury of a more summer feel will certainly be there, but the learning experience is the main focus.

“It’s pretty cool going into next week and not knowing what Mount Holyoke or St. Lawrence is going to give us,” Moore said. “We’ve never played them before, haven’t heard much about them so I think it’ll be good practice to go in there do our best and see what other teams have.”

“Just playing in different weather is going to be good for us,” Wilson said with a smile. “We’re playing against different teams we don’t know, playing in weather we don’t know. I think it’s just good for us to mix it up, it gives us another challenge.”

Though different competition will give the Polar Bears a different taste of the game, Grote feels the chance to strengthen the relationship amongst the team is equally as important.

“I always think that’s a great test to see how we come out in something we’re not familiar with,” Grote said in regard to her team’s trip down south. “We’ll be out on grass, in the heat, but I think the biggest part of Florida, being down there, is the continuing to bond as a team. We’ll obviously be traveling a lot together, leaving together, eating together and I think that’s something that you hope to have come out of that four-five day trip, is an even stronger unit than you already are.”

Bowdoin will return to its home grounds of Howard F. Ryan Field on March 21 against seven-time NESCAC champion Middlebury at 11 a.m.