My name is Tim Mullane, and I am a freshman on the Roger Williams University men’s lacrosse team.

Choosing to play lacrosse here was a process that I was thinking about for a while. The recruiting process heated up for me during the summer going into my senior year of high school. Coach Marty Kelly and I started talking via email and texting to determine if Roger Williams was the right fit for me not only athletically, but academically too.

Late into my senior year when my family and I finally worked out the finances, I called coach and told him that I decided this was the school for me. Once I made this decision, I knew it would be much different playing in college. The biggest difference I have learned so far in my short career is just the speed of play. Not the individual speed from the players, but little things from sliding to goalie reaction times are much faster.

Adjusting to this takes a good amount of mental processing and spending time in practice focusing on the little details more than you would in high school. As a student athlete, there are a lot of things that have to be given up to play a sport in college. The very first thing I learned that is different is class schedules. We are not allowed to schedule a class after 3:20 p.m. This leaves you with less options than a normal student would have for classes.

In the spring, we have practice pretty much every day, and we have to go back from a practice or a game. This can make it difficult to go back to your dorm or the library and work on your homework, as all other students would have time to do during the time that you were committed to your team. With this all being said, I still would not give up playing this sport for the world. It keeps me sane and lets me think about that sport, and that sport only, during the time I am on the field.

Personally, at the beginning of the season, I said I wanted to stay healthy for the whole season and make a big impact on the team’s success. I know that having all of a team’s assets for the entirety of the season is also a big part in a team’s success. Unfortunately, we lost one of our senior midfielders who is a very good lacrosse player, which took a big hit on our team. Thankfully, he has been an even greater leader on the sidelines; he is always positive and tells everyone what they need to hear from a great player like himself.

So far, I can say that these goals are pretty accurate for me. Although it is early in the season, I am happy with the way I have been playing and hopefully can continue to produce for the team. Anything that I can do to help the team win as many games as possible is all I can ask for.

Our team’s goal this year is to win the conference. We believe that this is a very accomplishable goal if all things play out like we would hope. We are a very young team with some of the best upperclassmen leaders that I have been around.

We believe that with this leadership and influx of talent, we can be a very scary team once we put it all together. The vibe in the locker room is very upbeat and everyone is always trying to get the best out of each other.

I would say that we are a pretty tight-knit group, and I personally believe that this is one of the most important factors to success. Hopefully, at the end of this season, we can look back at our goals and say we accomplished all that we wanted to and that everyone put all they could into this special season.