The Harvard women's lacrosse team welcomes nine freshmen to its roster. The class, whose standouts hail primarily from New York, will look to make a big impact from the first game, as the youngsters figure to see significant playing time.

Returning the conference’s most prolific scorer, an experienced head coach, and two battle-tested goalkeepers, the Harvard women’s lacrosse team appears to have the experience necessary to be an Ivy League contender.

But if the Crimson hopes to find itself atop the Ancient Eight at season’s end, it will need help from a far more inexperienced group—its freshman class.

With nine first-years featured on its 21-person roster, the class of 2013 will play a major role in determining the success—or failure—of this year’s team.

“The freshmen are going to jump right in,” Harvard coach Lisa Miller said. “[It will be] trial by fire.”

But while most coaches might see a young and inexperienced lineup—Miller expects to start at least four or five rookies—as a disadvantage, some members of the Crimson squad see it as a secret weapon.

“We’re really young,” freshman Jennifer VanderMeulen said. “But I actually think it’s going to be to our advantage, because people aren’t expecting us.”

With that said, Miller’s second recruiting class at Harvard did not fly under the radar. The Crimson’s rookie class is made up of six players from either the U.S. Lacrosse or Under Armor All-America Teams and features members who passed up offers from such powerhouse programs as Northwestern and Princeton.

“It’s a good class,” said Miller, who coached at Syracuse for 10 seasons. “Their skill is good. Their game understanding is good. It’s a class comparable to my recruiting class at Syracuse that had the two All-Americans and Big East Defender of the Year.”

On top of their skills and game understanding, the strongest aspect of the Crimson’s newcomers may be their athleticism.

“They’re fast kids, and they’re going to link the two halves of the field together,” co-captain Delia Pais said. “It’s an area of the game that we’ve lacked in years previous, and now it’s come into place.”

But Miller and her freshmen understand that they cannot simply rely on their speed to create open shots for themselves, as most of them were able to do in high school. In preparation for the much faster and more physical environment of collegiate play, Miller has tried to emulate a game-like environment in practice to get her players up to speed before tomorrow’s opener against UMass.

One freshman who is expected to make an impact from the Crimson’s first game is VanderMeulen, a 5’8” attack out of Liverpool, N.Y. VanderMeulen received interest from top collegiate lacrosse programs throughout her four years at Liverpool High School, where she set the school record for goals scored with 213.

But despite offers from Princeton, Duke, Johns Hopkins, and Northwestern, VanderMeulen chose Harvard because of the chance it offered to help change the program’s direction.

“What I loved about Harvard was that I had an opportunity to make a difference,” VanderMeulen said. “I wasn’t just going to be fed into the machine and kicked back out.”

Now that she’s with the Crimson, VanderMeulen’s teammates are hopeful that she can continue to use her tall frame and powerful shot to light up the scoreboard at the collegiate level.