The spring season in sports has started at the college level, with high schools not far behind. My favorite spring sport is lacrosse, which in my mind is always associated with cold, wet weather for the first month or so. And as college schedules seem to start a little earlier each year, the weather in the last few years appears to match as well.
This year I have already covered two women's lacrosse games at Stony Brook University. The first picture illustrates the conditions for the first half, wet, very cold and with a breeze strong enough to limit shooting away from the wind direction. I think it remarkable that these young women can run up and down the field with distain for the weather while I simultaneously froze and became soaked from the wind driven rain and light snow.
This past Saturday at a second home game for Stony Brook, I walked to midfield to see one of the referees don not only a baseball cap but a wool cap to ward off the cold resulting from nearly 25 mph winds that were buffeting the field. Having just arrived, I had not realized how much the wind was affecting conditions on the field. It became very obvious that the referee had been smart in donning the winter cap.
I can only hope that the cold weather will soon warm up so that photographing early spring sports becomes more pleasurable, rather than an endurance test like yesterday's game was. Despite the weather, the Stony Brook Seawolves fashioned their first win of the season, which made up for the poor (in my opinion) field conditions. I am looking forward to a day with good sun and short sleeves, instead of my warmest and most windproof coat. Operating without gloves is also so much nicer
