Robert Lapp is a first-year attack man who has established himself as a legitimate goal scoring threat. Lapp scored six goals and two assists in the team's first two scrimmages. The DePauw sat down with Lapp to see how he felt about the DePauw University lacrosse team's outlook this season and how he and his teammates are settling in.
The DePauw (TDP): Being a mostly freshman team, how have you guys adjusted to the college level?
Robert Lapp (RL): Well, you know, coach has helped a lot. We have a senior, Jack Russell, who really helps out a lot. He tells us the guys we're playing are pretty much men. We're just a bunch of freshmen coming out of no where. We've had a few scrimmages so we've gotten a feel for how much faster the game is. We just have to play our hearts out; we have to play scrappy.
TDP: How has the coaching staff dealt with teaching an entirely new team a new system?
RL: There are obviously classic fundamentals, lacrosse I.Q., that we all know. When it comes to the college game, he's obviously instituting a new defense, a new offense. We're playing the run and gun type style, so he wants us to run a lot. He wants us to lay unsettled. We're playing against teams that have been together for years at a time, so we're not going to be able to beat them in the six-on-six game. He wants us to push. He wants us to take a lot of shots.
TDP: What has been the most exciting part of having an almost completely new team?
RL: It's just the opportunity we have. People don't really take it into [account]. I always think about it. We have such an amazing opportunity. We're the building blocks, we're the foundation of the program. We can either not play well and continue to lose, or we can make this program a real program. We can win games; we can become a force in the NCAC. Maybe we can make it in a couple years to the conference tournament or the national tournament. It's just truly remarkable the opportunity that we have been presented with, and we want to take advantage of that to our highest ability.
TDP: What was the atmosphere like on the team at the beginning of the year compared to now?
RL: Personally, coming in at the beginning of the year I was really nervous. I didn't know what to expect. I just knew there were a ton of freshmen they just scouted. We like to think of it as our first year, considering last year didn't go too hot. We're the first recruiting class. We have guys from Florida, Ohio, all over the country. We really came together as a team, and I truly love hanging out with all the guys. We want to win games. We want to be an actual contender.
TDP: Being the first real recruiting class, competition must be intense for positions. How has the team dealt with that?
RL: On our defense, we've got a lot of really good long poles. Our coaches keep an updated depth chart you can go and check. If you do really well in practice, you'll move up the depth chart. It's constantly changing. There's always room for improvement; there's never a set in stone depth chart. If you don't play well, there's a chance you won't start. There's just a constant competitive nature for our team.
TDP: How have you guys been able to come together as a unit?
RL: The weather this year has not been advantageous, so we've had a lot of 5 a.m. practices and 7 a.m. lifts, but we're all getting through it together. We all get breakfast after practice and go to Two West on weekends. And we hang out too. We're all good friends. We'll see each other, we'll have a good time. We all like hanging out with each other, not just on the lacrosse field, but off it as well. It's really nice to have a large group of freshmen that actually like each other.
TDP: What has the chemistry been like on your line in particular?
RL: We have Sam Caravana. He's a lefty. He's a finisher; he likes to settle the ball down. He's going to be sneaky. If I dodge and draw a slide, he's going to be the guy people forget about. When people turn their heads, he does a good job of slipping behind the defense. I'm looking for him. And then you've got Adam Bridges who is kind of an outside threat. He really spreads the defense because he can just hit it from anywhere. If his guy collapses on me, I can feed it to him and he's wide open. We have every single necessary piece on our attack line.
TDP: You scored six goals in your first two games. How have you been able to step in and find your groove so early?
RL: I came from a really good high school program [where] I had really good coaches. I know the game very well, and coming into college I expected the same type of thing. We have different types of players on this team than I did in high school, so I adopted a different kind of role. I want the ball on my stick a lot. I want to be the guy to create the offense. If I'm not scoring, I'm doing a good enough job that somebody else is scoring. I do adopt the role of being the guy who initiates the offense, which I didn't really do that much in high school. It's great that guys can feed off me because we're picking up team chemistry off of it. We're all adopting our own kind of roles, so it's really nice to see how well we mesh into our offense and our game plan.
TDP: What are your expectations for this year's team?
RL: We want to win a lot of home games. We really just want to win. We set a bunch of goals that we want to capitalize on. We want to become a respected team on this campus; we don't want people to just be like "Oh it's just DePauw lacrosse, whatever." We want the campus to get a whiff of what we are and what we stand for, and [we want] to be a force to be reckoned with. We're going to score some goals; we're going to stop some goals; we're going to win some games. It's going to be fun to see how dramatically a team can improve through team chemistry.