Fuqua School’s varsity girls lacrosse program is young, as are the players on the team, but both are demonstrating clear development, and Friday’s home contest was the latest evidence. The Lady Falcons routed the visiting Chatham Hall Lady Turtles 13-5.

Emmalee Klein, Fuqua’s head coach, said she was quite proud of her players.

“We had 10 assists, and we’re working really hard on keeping them working as a team,” she said.

This showed substantial improvement after a 15-13 road win against North Cross School on April 3 in which the Lady Falcons registered only one assist.

These two most recent games took the Lady Falcons’ 2018 record to 2-2 overall, 2-0 in the Blue Ridge Conference.

“Throughout the season already, they’re working so much better as a team and (are) really getting comfortable with each other, which is great,” Klein said.

The team lost only one key contributor from last year’s team that went 6-5 overall, 4-2 in the conference and advance all one key contributor from last year’s team that went 6-5 overall, 4-2 in the conference, advancing all the way to the conference championship game before falling to Virginia Episcopal School.

“We were lucky last year,” Fuqua Assistant Coach Leigh Melton said. “Harper (Melton) on our team got MVP for the conference, and then we had three first team (players) and one honorable mention, which was great because that was only our second year as a team. This is our third year, but our second year playing in the conference. So, last year, was our first year in the conference, and we did really well. We got girls noticed, which was really nice.”

This year, the Lady Falcons’ roster includes three seniors, two juniors, four sophomores and four freshmen.

“We also have two seventh and two sixth-graders that can’t play, except for non-conference games, so we feel that the program is going to be strong with more girls coming in, which is nice,” Melton said. “It’s new to them. There’s only a couple of girls on our team that have ever played before.”

Leading Fuqua this year is versatile junior Harper Melton, with junior Irene Thornton and sophomore Audra Murphy providing leadership on defense.

Murphy, also showing versatility, played attack for most of the game against Chatham Hall, leading the team with five goals. Melton had three goals and six assists, freshman Elizabeth Hall added three goals and freshman Sophie Watson had two.

The Lady Falcons progress through this season with the clear goal of winning the conference.

Fuqua visits Virginia Episcopal School on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. for a regular season rematch of last season’s Blue Ridge title game.