Talk to any boys’ varsity lacrosse player, and you will find that expectations are unusually high for the upcoming lacrosse season.

“Anything apart from an NCS championship will be a disappointment to us,” said junior Oliver Madison.

These high hopes may be warranted on a team that lost just one significant player from last year’s squad that won the MCAL championship and narrowly lost in the Division I NCS semifinals – the best ever finish by a Redwood lacrosse team.

“Last year, we had really high expectations and we set goals to win NCS and we came up one game short so I don’t think our expectations are any different than last year,” senior Joe Perrella said. “We expect to win MCALs and we expect to win NCS.”

Redwood finished 16-6 last year, but was undefeated in MCAL and had five of six losses come by just one goal.

According to Madison, the team should be even better than last year’s, and expects to run away with the MCAL competition over Marin Catholic, their stiffest competition.

“When you say top competition, I mean it’s not going to be that great,” Madison said.

Last year, Redwood beat Marin Catholic by two goals, and due to the fact that MC’s top scorer from last year graduated, Madison said that Redwood expects to win easily.

“Last year, we beat [Marin Catholic] by two goals and their top scorer graduated, while we were missing Briton Barge and Max Friend so we didn’t have two of our top players.”

Outside of MCAL, however, Redwood will be tested by some of the best teams in the Bay Area when they play defending NCS champion San Ramon Valley and 2012 runner-up De La Salle. De La Salle beat Redwood 7-6 in last year’s NCS semifinal.

The Giants will also match up again St. Ignatius, a team perennially ranked in the top five in California by Maxpreps.com, a website that ranks top high school teams.

“[San Ramon Valley and St. Ignatius] are two traditionally powerful teams, but I would consider Redwood to be on the same playing field as any team in California right now,” Perrella said.

To prepare for the tough schedule, the Giants have added a new element to their preseason training, Madison said, and participated in cross fit training as a team.

Perrella said that the goal of the conditioning sessions is to ensure that the Giants can take advantage of other teams’ fatigue at the end of games.

“I think we are probably one of the only teams who have been conditioning for the past three weeks,” Perrella said. “Come the 4th quarter and the end of the season we’ll be healthier, we’ll be faster, we’ll be stronger.”

The Giants are led offensively by junior Patrick Tracy, who has verbally committed to NCAA Division I Brown University. Senior Briton Barge, named to the all-MCAL second team last year, provides the complement to Tracy at the attack position.

On defense, Redwood boasts another Division I recruit in junior Liam Bourke, who will play at the University of Michigan. Bourke is joined on defense by 2012 all-MCAL first team player Matt Kennis, also a junior.

What stands out about this team, Madison said, is the depth of the team’s talent.

Indeed, several players, besides Bourke and Tracy, plan to play at the collegiate level, whether as part of a club team or for an NCAA Division III school.

When asked if this team might be one of the best Redwood team’s ever, Madison replied succinctly, “I do.”