The first few months of American’s 2020 were a rollercoaster.

It started in January with a number of player transfers and without leadership at the top after the university released Jenna Petrucelli, the team’s then-head coach, from her contract for school policy violations. In February, it brought in an interim replacement in Maureen Breslin who didn’t have any college lacrosse coaching experience. By mid-March, against most predictions, the Eagles were soaring with a 7-0 start to their season with one of the country’s top-scoring offenses.

Then the pandemic shut it all down.

Since March, things on that ride have markedly slowed down. In June, American brought in former Team USA midfielder Lindsay Teeters as its new head coach. At the start of the fall, the Eagles looked forward to getting back on the field but were met by the city of Washington, D.C.’s tight coronavirus restrictions that kept them from even starting the first conditioning-only phase of their preseason until mid-October.

The last few months haven’t been the easiest, especially for a team on such a high in March and now forced to work through a particularly prolonged offseason. But American has navigated this time the same way it managed the more frenetic months at the start of the year — by putting all its focus on lacrosse.

“Our team has always just remained really close and been able to focus on lacrosse, even though we have had so many coaching changes and weird team scenarios,” senior attacker Emma Vinall said. “That’s how we’ve been able to develop. Always focusing on just lacrosse and our teammates has been a good way to continue to get better on the field.”

The Eagles are four full weeks into their preseason training slate. After two weeks of conditioning, footwork and agility workouts, they were finally able to pick up balls and sticks starting November 9, albeit still masked-up and socially-distanced.

It’s far from the way that Teeters might have expected the opening months of her first college head coaching job to go, but it’s an experience she’s cherished so far nonetheless.

A two-time All-American at Boston University — another Patriot League program based in a city with a similar academic and athletic environment — Teeters (who graduated from Boston in 2006) was sold when the Eagles came calling this spring.

“The experience that I had really mimics a lot of what American has,” she said. “The academic standards, the fact that they’re in a city and it’s such a unique experience for a college campus, and then the potential they had from a lacrosse standpoint was really what attracted me.”

After her own career, Teeters worked as an assistant at James Madison, George Washington and Virginia Tech. She left the college ranks in 2013 to work as the Men’s and Women’s National Teams Manager at US Lacrosse, and then spent the last six years coaching at the club and high school levels.

The varied experience in all different areas of the sport prepared her to take on this new opportunity with the Eagles.

“Coming from playing on the US team, to then switching my roles and being the National Teams manager and really seeing exactly what goes into not only the training aspect, but also the everyday grind and administrative side of the game,” Teeters said. “All of that has really gotten me to this point.”

Teeters wants to be known as a player’s coach. She still speaks fondly about her relationships with two of her most influential coaches: Liza Kelly, who coached the Terriers in 2005 and 2006 and now heads up Denver, and Liz Robertshaw, BU’s longtime coach from 2006-18 who now leads the IWLCA. Even in these virtual times, she’s tried to take an active role in building those connections with her new team.

“She’s just a really positive role model,” Vinall said. “This is definitely a challenging time, so I think she’s done such a good job with keeping our team in high spirits, as we haven’t been playing all fall.”

It’s a lot of Zoom: class calls, one-on-one calls, Jeopardy, trivia nights, scavenger hunts, Pictionary. Teeters thinks they’ve done just about “anything and everything you can in a Zoom capacity.”

“Although [the pandemic] has limited me in my coaching on the field, I do feel like I’m getting to know my players a little more, and they’re getting to know me,” she said. “We’re building those relationships off the field, so that we can transition on the field so much easier.”

Whenever they do take the field for a game, Teeters should have a lot to work with as a coach. At least nine of the regular starters who powered the Eagles to that 7-0 start will return in 2021.

Vinall is the biggest of those names, fresh off a season that saw her single-handedly shatter numerous program records with 42 goals, 6.0 goals per game, 47 points and 55 draw controls. She led the country in goals, goals per game and shots per game and closed the shortened campaign with a whopping nine goals and 13 draw controls in a win over Presbyterian.

“Talk about just true talent,” Teeters said. “It’s impressive to see her speed in practice and her intensity in practice and the coachability that she has. It goes to show not only why she was the leading goal-scorer for our program, but in the country. Across the board, she’s just an incredibly talented young player.”

Vinall joined American after a prolific high school career. She’d scored more than 300 goals for W.T. Woodson in Fairfax, Va., and in her final two seasons, she earned All-State, All-Region and All-District honors. She’s gotten even better since joining the Eagles, dominating the program’s scoring (128 goals) and draw control (119) categories in three seasons.

“[Emma] and I have this kind of connection on the field. I don’t want to say we read each other’s minds, but we are able to communicate just through one look,” said fellow attacker Casey Harkins. “It’s really awesome, being able to mesh with another player like that.”

Harkins is set to use the extra year of eligibility approved by the NCAA in March to play another season and begin her Master’s program in health promotion management. She and Vinall were the Eagles’ strongest producers in 2020. Out of the team’s 136 goals, the two created 77 of them, either by scoring or dishing out an assist.

Senior midfielder Kendall Goldblum — who had 29 goals in American’s 7 games, approaching her sophomore year total of 38 in 16 games — and senior defender Cate Golden are two other notable returnees. Goalkeeper Emma Curtis won’t come back for 2021, but her probable replacement, senior Delaney Oliveira, did start three games in 2020.

American proved it could take down its non-conference opponents last season. Its next step is to break through in the Patriot League. The season was called off before the Eagles could face any conference opponents — an area of their schedule in which they haven’t won more than five games since 2013.

With two Patriot League foes already in US Lacrosse Magazine’s Early Top 25, the challenge is there, and however much time they’re given until the 2021 season kicks off, the Eagles are sure to use it to prepare to make a statement in Patriot League play.

“In the past, we obviously haven’t been able to show, been able to stand out, in conference. We’ve been the underdog,” Harkins said. “I’d like to prove to people that we’re here to play and compete.”