Going out with a smile

Jennifer Menditch Arizona Daily Wildcat UA lacrosse seniors (from left to right) Ellen Higgins, Rosemary Cate, Tami Hubbert and Maren Henley have finished their careers at Arizona and now prepare for graduation. The women's lacrosse team finished a disappointing 4-6 this year after four consecutive appearances in the Western Women's Lacrosse League's final four.

No coaches came out to speak in flowing terms of what they meant to the team.

No former players came back to honor them.

Like any club sport athletes, they came and went in the blink of an eye. No banners will ever hang from McKale Center, no signs will line Arizona Stadium for them.

But that doesn't mean they'll be forgotten.

"Not even just as players but as friends I'll miss them a lot," junior attacker Erin Bradbury said. "They were so much fun. Just the spirit they brought to the team on and off the field. They brought a lot of enthusiasm and leadership to this team."

Team captain Maren Henley and fellow seniors Tami Hubbert, Ellen Higgins and Rosemary Cate ended their careers with a 14-9 win, capping an up-and-down final season.

"It was a lot better than going out with a loss," Henley said with a smile. "I had a lot of fun, and I was just really happy I played well in that game. I was really nervous, not about our opponent, but about how I'd do in my last game. I didn't want to suck."

This season ended earlier than most for the Wildcats, as they struggled to a 4-6 record and missed the playoffs after four consecutive appearances in the Western Women's Lacrosse League's final four.

"I didn't know what to do with myself this weekend," Cate said in regards to not having a game for the first time in a month.

This season saw the Wildcats return only about a third of last year's team, and integrating the new players, many of whom had never played lacrosse before, proved to be difficult.

Arizona Daily Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Senior Goalie Tami Hubbert (56) throws the ball upfield during a game last season.

"It was definitely frustrating," Higgins said. "It could be frustrating a lot of times."

Going from third place in the league to fifth place in their division was quite a drop for the seniors to deal with.

"It's hard when you're used to playing at a certain level," Hubbert said. "We were still competing well, but it just wasn't enough."

Each of the seniors had up-and-down years individually as well. Hubbert, a defender and backup goalie, battled neck problems all year that often kept her out of the lineup at times when she was needed.

"Tami didn't play a lot this year, but last year she was great on defense," Bradbury said. "We kind of make fun of her because she's so hyper. She plays with so much energy. She was really good at defense, we really missed her this year."

Head coach Josh Dreiband said Hubbert's absence left Henley, also a defender, in a tough position, one she battled with as best she could.

"Maren's awesome," he said. "She basically was our defense this year. I mean, she had a small supporting cast, but she really saved us a lot of times."

Bradbury agreed with her coach.

"Maren was pretty much our whole defense," she said. "She just has a great sense of the game. She's a great co-captain, I'll miss her a lot. I don't know what we're going to do without her."

Dreiband said it was disappointing for him to see Henley not get to go out a winner.

"I really wanted them to do better for her," he said. "It really kind of bothers me we couldn't be successful for her."

Unlike Hubbert and Henley, the other two seniors did not play all four years at UA.

Cate, a midfielder, just joined the team this year, having never even played lacrosse before.

"I've just always been interested in it," she said. "I was at a school back east last year and I was around it a lot, so when I came back here I decided I'd give it a shot."

Arizona Daily Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Senior midfielder Ellen Higgins passes a ball upfield during a game against UCLA earlier this year.

Bradbury said Cate's inexperience didn't take away from her performance this year.

"Rosemary was a really great addition to the team," Bradbury said. "She's a hilarious person, she works really hard. She'll be greatly missed."

Of the other three, only Higgins played lacrosse prior to coming to UA. Henley said she played softball, and that was a huge help in making herself a good lacrosse player.

"We all picked it up really well," Cate said.

Henley admitted she's still not the consummate player.

"I still don't know all the rules," she said. "I still get called for things sometimes that I don't know anything about."

Higgins backed her up, saying complete knowledge of the rules wasn't as important as being in shape.

"I think when you have some sort of athletic ability you can pick up the sport," she said.

Higgins, a midfielder, also did not play all four years at UA. She played as a freshman with Hubbert and Henley, and then sat out two years before coming back for this season.

"Ellen was one of the tougher people on the team," Dreiband said. "She busted her ass, too. She just had a lack of experience."

Bradbury said the team will miss Higgins' leadership.

"Ellen's a really good leader, even though she wasn't a captain," Bradbury said. "She was really important in our transition game, so we'll miss her there."

Higgins said playing club lacrosse is "a huge burden, emotionally, physically and financially."

"We have to pay for everything, we have to get ourselves everywhere, it's tough," she said.

Road trips for the team that included six hour drives to California, packing a dozen people into a single hotel room and other cost-cutting moves weren't as bad as they sound, Henley said.

"They get more interesting as time goes on," she said. "It can get tense at times, but for the most part it's fun."

Higgins agreed.

"It's fun," she said. "By the end of the season we're all just giving each other so much shit anyway. It's tougher for Maren, though, than for the rest of us."

Henley, who is also the team president, said it wasn't always easy to stay calm when the team hit the road.

"When you're the shepherd and not the sheep...," she said with a sigh. "But I think the best part is the road trips. That's where the best memories come from."

The memories each of the seniors have of the last four years encompass the changes the program has been through.

"When we got here the team was doing real well," Henley said. "They had two teams."

The days of an A and a B Team, though, are gone, largely due to a lack of players coming out to play for UA.

"It's been really unfortunate," Henley said.

Arizona, though, is considering adding lacrosse as a Division I sport in the near future, which would obviously breathe a whole new life into the program.

The four seniors, though, will not be around to see the transition.

Still, their memories of their time on the team are positive.

"Other than breaking my nose that one time my favorite memory was from my sophomore year," Henley said, thinking back to the 1997 season. "It was the playoffs and we were down to Santa Barbara by four goals with six minutes to go, and then three goals with two minutes, and we beat them by one."

Henley said Arizona was losing still with 10 seconds left when they managed to score two rapid goals to pull the upset and advance to the final four.

"You never see that happen in lacrosse," Higgins said.

Henley said her favorite personal moment came in that game when UCSB was still up by two goals and a Gaucho was coming toward her with the ball.

"I'm in the midfield and people are screaming at me not to check this girl, to just let her go by and try to get the ball back," she said. "So I didn't listen and I checked her, got the ball, and passed it to Sarah (Schier) and she scored to pull us within one."

Hubbert's favorite memory came from the year before.

"The first game I'd ever played lacrosse I was playing goalie, and I was so nervous," she said.

Now the quartet face the typical uncertain futures most college graduates have to face. Henley and Higgins graduate May 15, while Hubbert and Cate have one more semester before they're done.

Henley said she's going to use her degree in geological engineering to get a job with a geotechinical engineering firm, which she described as the "middleman" between the construction crew and the designers.

Higgins is heading home to be a curator at the museum of art in Portland, Maine. After the summer she said she's just going to send out her resume and cross her fingers.

Hubbert plans to go to graduate school to get her MFA in creative writing. She said she hopes to continue to play lacrosse on the club level.

Cate said she will spend part of her summer in Spain, but her post-graduation plans are still up in the air.

As the four seniors head off, it leaves players like Bradbury to pick up the leadership role they left behind.

"Yeah, I guess I'll have to," she said. "I feel like I keep stepping up and up and keep trying to make the team better."