Zane Ratliff: Lacrosse Class of 2022

By Vedant Muse '22

Zane Ratliff is a junior who plays lacrosse at North Cross School. He is in the class of 2022. Zane has played lacrosse since he was 11 years old back in 4th grade. He said, “Many friends on my hockey team convinced me to play.” Zane also said, “The reason why I love lacrosse so much is because it is a mixture of soccer hockey, and basketball, football.” Zane wears number 4 on the team because his favorite player growing up is Lyle Thompson.
    Zane plays two key positions in lacrosse attack and midfield. Zane said, “My favorite position is attack because I love scoring and dishing out assists to my teammate. It has the physicality of football, passing like basketball, scoring like hockey, and field play like soccer.” For the past 7 years Zane has played travel lacrosse for Valley Select and VA RoughRiders. Most of the travel games are up in Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania on the weekends. There are many scouts who are at the lacrosse tournaments trying to recruit players. 
    Covid has made things a little bit more challenging for Zane for the upcoming spring season because it is hard to find weight rooms that are open. Many fields are closed and if they are open only a certain amount of people can be on there at once. This year we are going to play a lot of teams down in North Carolina because Virginia team rules are much more stricter than North Caroline and we may have to wear masks. Zane said, “I’m happy that we are having a season, but sad because there will be less bonding time with my teammates because of covid. This year the lacrosse team will not be able to travel together on busses, and there will be less time to see each other in the hotels.