It was a breezy Wednesday evening as Coppell boys lacrosse hosted a national powerhouse in IMG National. Students and parents poured into stands, almost completely filling them. 

Knowing the competition that awaited them, Coppell started off physically and with speed to attempt to throw IMG off its rhythm. As the game grew on, it became evident that IMG National’s depth, sheer talent and raw athleticism would be too much for the Cowboys.

Coppell  fell to IMG National, 19-6, on Wednesday evening at Coppell Middle School North. 

Even though losing by 13 is not an honorable achievement, the goal for the Cowboys (1-1) was not to win this game but to take the high-level experience and use it going forward. 

“Our goal was to improve as individuals and most importantly, as a team, this game,” Coppell coach Matt Mueller said. “From the first quarter to the fourth quarter, we did exactly that. Regardless of the score, we checked all the boxes, we accomplished everything we wanted out of this game. We have now shown that while we still have a lot of work to do to be consistent but we saw that we can play at a super high level in flashes.”  

After giving away seven goals and ending the half 11-3, Coppell’s best performance of this game was holding IMG National (4-0) to three scores and scoring one of their own in the third quarter. 

We just reminded them to keep playing like they were playing, stay engaged,” Mueller said. “It’s a four-quarter game, a safe lead in lacrosse is nonexistent, you can score a lot of goals in a short amount of time so we just told them to continue to buy into the game plan, keep playing tough. Supporting one another on the field, off the field and good things are going to happen. 

Going into Grapevine on Sunday at noon at Coppell Middle School North, the Cowboys need to keep that intensity up and treat every team like they treated IMG National, according to Mueller. 

“[Keeping the intensity high is] hard with young high school kids because they have the tendency to, based on who you’re, adjust your game,” Mueller said. “If it’s a team perceived as not as good as you, it can bite you in the butt if you have that perception going in so we have to assume that every team is an IMG level team going in. We can control what we can control, not our opponent so take what we can do and control that, who cares about the opponent. We play the game not the name, I tell those guys all the time.”             

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