England Senior Women are half-way through their American tour out to North Carolina, with Minty Loxton-Barnard taking some time on her off day to reflect on the performances so far and look ahead to upcoming matches against top colleges Duke, UNC, and Clemson.
After three matches, England Women have an impressive 100% record, beating Elon 14-11, High Point 21-10, and then Queen’s 17-9 and Loxton-Barnard has seen the team getting better as the tour progresses.
The 21-year old midfielder is on one of her first extended tours with the senior squad after senior appearances at Home Internationals earlier this year and tours with Under 23s.
“From the first game to the third we’ve definitely improved a lot and become more cohesive as a team,” Loxton-Barnard said.
“We are probably in the best stead we could’ve been going into our final three games against difficult opposition and are really enjoying ourselves out there.”
The togetherness of the group is something that is always an important part of tours like these outside of major competition, for the players to really get to know each other during team activities, such as the visit to a pumpkin farm they took for their day off.
“It feels like a massive group of friends, on and off the pitch – we were saying last night that the team vibe off the pitch is definitely being reflected on the pitch and that’s helping everything go to plan.
“Everyone is pulling in the same direction, everyone’s really up for it and you can feel that.”
To add another element for them to contend with, they have been playing the colleges under NCAA rules, including 75 second shot clocks, something that has been a challenge, but also led to positive developments in their tactics.
“It’s (the shot clock) definitely made things more exciting and if you can put away those fast breaks, which we did that well in our previous game, then it’s about getting the decision making right so if we can do that I think we should go well for the rest of tour too.”
Loxton-Barnard has been enjoying the battle so far and is set for heat up even more towards the back end of the week.
“I’m enjoying myself and it’s exciting – It all just feels like a good step up it’s fast-paced, especially with the shot clocks, I love that and now I’m learning and adapting to the way the Americans are playing throughout each game.
“We like to think we’re quite physical and in your face, so I think it will be a good learning curve and very competitive against the next few teams.
“We’re really honing our style now, we know how everyone wants to play in the offense and we’ve got communication sorted in the defence so it’s all coming together.”
After graduating from Durham University this summer, Loxton-Barnard moves into a full-time job in London once back from the tour and is savouring every moment of being able to focus on lacrosse whilst in North Carolina.
“It’s a very weird transition, for the past few years of my life it was training every day being around teammates and now I can’t do that anymore.
“They’re lucky as every single day those top universities get competitive training to push each other and now for me most training is now you against yourself - luckily, we have great coaches with England to help us with that when we’re not together as a group and keep us focused.
“Now, as soon as I’ve come out to America it’s put me back in that single mindset – with a new job coming up I’ve got lots of life admin to do but I’ve not been thinking about any of that as it’s been 100% focused on lacrosse and I’ve missed that!.”
While the day-to-day routine of university lacrosse is now behind her, Loxton-Barnard is not looking to take a step back and is keeping her lacrosse calendar full, taking any opportunities that come her way to compete at the highest level.
She has been selected for the British Lacrosse squad to play at the Hong Kong Sixes in December after two years playing in The Fly for Hustle and sees her Sixes exploits as complementing her full field game.
“I do love the Sixes game. Being a part of The Fly over the last two years has been one of the best tournaments and opportunities I’ve been involved in.”
“I love how quick it is – since I’ve started playing Sixes the more comfortable I’ve become with close cradling in tight spaces, driving down the alley without people clearing the way and needing less space to attack, so I’m excited to play in that again too.”
Following yesterday’s rest day, England are back into another run of three games in three days against formidable opposition but Minty feels the energy in the squad is still high.
“Our recovery has been great – Rich and Adam (the squad’s S&C team) have done a great job with that, getting us in ice baths, all that sort of stuff, and we’ve said we’re all feeling very fresh even after playing two games within 12 hours the other day.
“I’m really excited now for the competition and seeing how we adapt to playing some next level teams who play in a completely different to the way the English and European teams we usually face and I’m looking forward to meeting that competition full on.”
England play Duke on Friday at 5pm US/10pm UK time, before games against UNC on Saturday 5pm US/10pm UK and Clemson on Sunday 11am US/4pm UK.