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Committing to play a sport in college is an exciting but scary moment in life, especially the younger you are. Luckily for this duo, junior Amadis Levasa and senior Sophia Rozen will experience this together. These girls have been playing lacrosse together for three years now and get to continue playing at Emory & Henry, sharing their love of the sport.
“I started because my eighth grade teacher coached and invited me to play,” said Levasa. “I wasn’t so sure about it though, so I went to an interest practice and I just watched. I signed up for it the next day.”
Starting as young as eighth grade gives a player a significant advantage because many girls in Brunswick’s community first pick up a stick in freshman, sophomore, or even junior year. Using the skills learned from a young age can make you a fierce player, developing and refining one’s playing ability, something both Rozen and Levasa relate to.
“I first picked up a stick in the summer of sixth grade, and I’ve loved it ever since,” said Rozen. “I love the connection that I have with my teammates and the coaches and just being able to go out and compete against the teams we do. I think it’s really cool.”
Players get so many remarkable experiences playing a sport with best friends and peers, but friends aren’t Levasa’s primary love for the game.
“I like how physical you have to be,” said Levasa. “You have to keep a strong mentality, and it improves your mental and physical health. I enjoy the teammates and how it’s not just friends, it’s your family.”
Lacrosse is a sport that involves teamwork, physical and mental toughness, stamina, and skill. Players don’t just pick up a stick and automatically become great at lacrosse; it takes practice after practice, game after game, and choosing to pick up a stick outside of practice time, whether it’s setting up on wall ball or picking up a travel ball team.
“Travel ball started me off,” said Levasa. “Travel ball helped me with the main skills I needed, and it helped keep me warmed up for my actual school season. I play for West and I played for a travel ball team here, Wild Tide, and now I play for a travel team in Wilmington, the Coastal Rays.”
As Levasa said, travel ball is a great way to learn and improve your skills while keeping you warmed up for your school season. Travel ball also allows Levasa and others the chance to play with some of the girls she usually plays against and provides teaching and learning skills from the other team.
After years of travel and high school ball, they both decided to go to Emory & Henry.
“I started looking at Emory & Henry in the summer of junior year,” said Rozen. “The coach moved from Montreat and to Emory & Henry and invited me there. I really like the coach there, and I love how they have a whole separate hospital just for their nursing and their health students because I want to go into healthcare, so I think it’s really cool that I can play with the team that I love and also study something that I love.”
When committing to play for a school, the coach a player is committing to is an essential factor as well as the campus environment. This campus is where students will spend the next four years of life and start a new chapter that students will look back on for years to come.
“I started looking into Emory & Henry last season (at West),” said Levasa. “They reached out and gave me an offer two weeks ago, and the campus makes it special; it’s clean, it’s organized. It’s just a really healthy environment and it’s mainly athletes. The coach is really good; it’s just a great campus.”
A good environment isn’t just the campus; it’s also the people around you. The people you’re with, whether it be people on campus you don’t know but walk past every day or the girls on your team, can significantly affect your experience, but it’s still something to look forward to.
“I’m excited about getting new experiences with new people, playing with my friend from South [Brunswick HS], and just getting to experience a new place,” said Rozen. “Although I’ve been playing with Amadis for about three years, I love how funny she is and like the connection she has with everyone. Her vibes are just great and she has awesome defense skills. I’m looking forward to keeping our good vibes going and having someone that I know there.”
With this special bond between two great players, there surely won’t be stopping Emory & Henry from getting a lot of wins in their seasons.
“I’m most looking forward to playing with Sophie,” said Levasa. “Not only physically but how mentally strong she is makes her a great player; like every single game she goes into, she goes in head strong and even if we’re losing by like ten, she always holds people up. She’s not there just to play, she’s just a good player in general and our chemistry is good, we have such similar mindsets and we’re both goal-oriented. We’re just able to relate to each other and the way we play the game together is different then most other duos on the field. We understand what the other has going on and what play we’re gonna have to run without even having to say anything.”
