Julia is a great lacrosse player and taught us some things, but she was more of a friend than a coach. We had some good lacrosse players, but we needed the coach to put it all together.

It feels like everything has been put back together. She knows what she is talking about and helps us to improve our game. Practices are very organized and we always are working on something with a single goal in mind.

Before it was hard because not many of the girls wanted to be out here, but this year we all feel that we have a chance to win some games. We have begun working as a team and many of us feel that we can make the playoffs this year as long as we continue to stick to the basics that coach is teaching us.

The situation here was really unorganized and players would show up if they wanted to while others wouldn't so you couldn't work on plays in practice.

We recognize that the most important job we have in front of us is to make sure our seventh- and eighth-graders enter high school prepared to succeed in a rigorous academic environment. Our children need double periods of English language arts and extra time in mathematics.

If we can do anything to help them, we're happy to do it. I think it's hit all of us hard, all of us have friends there. When we found out, probably half the school was crying.