Аддити Фостер из Northwestern прошла сборы национальной команды США по лакроссу в преддверии Олимпиады-2028

There were a couple times the past week where Aditi Foster had to take a moment and process it all. The Ambler resident and rising junior at Northwestern started her summer with a bang, winning a national championship as part of the Wildcats’ women’s lacrosse team May 24 on Memorial Day weekend. Soon after, Foster was invited to be part of the 22-player pool selected for USA Lacrosse’s Women’s Sixes training camp in Sparks, Maryland as the sport takes its first steps toward inclusion in the next Summer Olympics, which is where she spent the last week. It was there, surrounded by some of the game’s greats, that Foster kept thinking about how she’d landed in such an incredible environment while also trying to show them what she can do. “It’s pretty surreal,” Foster said in an interview with The Reporter after the camp ended Friday afternoon. “I used to watch these people and kind of fan girl over all of them and now I’m in that position now, so it’s pretty crazy to think about. The growth, I feel like every year, it’s just exploded even more so I’m really excited for the Olympics because it’s probably the best opportunity women’s lacrosse has had for exposure.” Lacrosse is coming to the Olympics in 2028 using the sixes format, a variation of the sport that uses a smaller field, shorter quarters, a 30-second shot clock and fewer players. It’s a fast-paced game that requires players able to play both sides of the ball and doesn’t have the traditional draw controls of full field lacrosse after each goal so it’s a near-constant flow of action. This camp was the first step toward the Olympic Games, with another training camp set for September ahead of the Pan-American Sixes Lacrosse Championships that serve as a qualifier for the World Lacrosse Sixes Championship. A 5-foot-6 attacker, Foster had done developmental combines with USA Lacrosse as a youth player but this would also be her first exposure to the highest level of the international game. In total, 22 players participated in the first camp and Foster did not take it lightly she was one of the names selected to compete. “I remember saying to Michelle (Tumolo), one of the assistant coaches, that I never thought I’d be playing with some of these girls, like Izzy Scane, I never thought I’d have a chance to play with her,” Foster said. “It is a little bit scary going into a place where you’d never played with most of these people and you’re one of the youngest ones there but I kind of love that challenge so it was a lot of fun.” Foster was a highly decorated high school player and a top prospect in her class. She spent her freshman and sophomore years at Upper Dublin before transferring to Penn Charter as a junior, then earned Inter-Ac MVP and All-American honors as a senior with the Quakers in the spring of 2024. She was a key reserve for national juggernaut Northwestern as a freshman, playing in 19 games with 12 goals as the Wildcats lost to North Carolina in the national title game. This past spring, Foster moved into the starting lineup and put together a breakout year playing alongside national scoring leader Madison Taylor, the attacker netting 54 goals with 15 assists to earn Honorable Mention All-American plaudits. While Foster had a chance to reunite with Taylor this week at camp, the two rooming together throughout the week, it was ironically Taylor’s absence last fall that had opened the door to Foster’s emergence on the national level. “My teammates helped a lot with gaining that confidence,” Foster said. “Maddie helped me a lot with that, it was a lot of fun to be back with her this week, but I also had a lot of opportunities in the fall. She was hurt in the fall and couldn’t really play, so I had to step up and be that No. 1 option, which I think helped with my confidence. “It was a big difference from May of my freshman year to the end of September my freshman year, it was almost a 180.” The Wildcats got back to the national final where they got a rematch with UNC. Trailing heading into the fourth, Northwestern used a 5-0 advantage in the frame to stun the top-ranked Tar Heels and claim a 14-11 victory for its ninth national title. Foster, who had a hat trick and assist in the game, scored what held up as the game-winning goal with 7:36 left in regulation. “It was so surreal,” Foster said. “When you’re practicing lacrosse when you’re younger, you think about scoring that game-winner in your backyard. I was pointing at all the fans and celebrating with my teammates, that’s the kind of stuff you dream of. “I remember being in the backyard practicing with my brothers, it’s the kind of stuff I’d dream about but you never think that might actually be a possibility. You practice it for fun, but it became reality for me.” It was the perfect ending to the college season, Northwestern winning on its home field, but also a long one so Foster had been looking forward to some recovery time in June when the invitation from USA Lacrosse arrived in her email. Actually, it had arrived in her old high school recruiting email and at first, she was a little confused why she was being asked to get on a Zoom call regarding the Olympics. As she read through the invitation, Foster almost couldn’t believe it. “I couldn’t even believe it, my jaw dropped,” Foster said. “My first thought was ‘this is kind of insane.’ This is the stuff you dream about, we were saying this all the time at camp but just a few years ago, people didn’t even know if the Olympics would be an option for lacrosse. “Now that it is, it’s insane we can have the opportunity to be prepping two years in advance.” Going from field lacrosse to sixes was a major adjustment to Foster, who admitted it took a couple days at training camp to start to get the hang of it. Her experience playing sixes was mainly limited to practice scenarios, so she had a lot to learn especially with the camp using the international rules that are pretty different from what she’s been used to in the NCAA. The group had its first scrimmage on Tuesday, Aug. 18, which Foster said “felt like a totally different game,” but the more reps she got in, the more it started to feel like the sport she’s been playing her entire life. “Something I’ve tried to work on over the last year and something my coaches had me work on is just slowing down,” Foster said. “The game might seem so fast but if you’re able as a player to just slow yourself down, that’s how you get an advantage, especially in sixes. If you’re not pushing it down the field 24/7, if you take time to work the ball around and get the best shot, I feel like that’s something that’s really going to help me going into training in the fall.” It also put her out of her element a bit, Foster explaining that playing sixes meant she’d be playing the defensive side of the ball a lot more than she really ever had before. She described it as a more fast-break offense than the college game, so being on the opposite side meant she always had to be aware of what she was doing defensively and that might also be something she can apply when taking on defenders this coming college season. In her two years at Upper Dublin and as a junior at Penn Charter, Foster also played basketball where she was most known for her defensive abilities more than her offense. While she hasn’t played hoops in a few years, Foster leaned into her former second sport experience quite a bit this week. “That’s what I tried telling myself when I was playing defense all week,” Foster said with a laugh. “Especially in lacrosse, if you go for a stick, they’re just going to break you down defensively and go around you or change hands, so I was trying to think back to basketball and use my feet. “I haven’t played in a while but I remember I was pretty good at basketball but only for the defensive part.” Foster said the coaching staff didn’t really give players individual feedback when they broke camp on Friday and instead would be checking in with each of the participants with a call this coming week. For the moment, she’s eager to finally get that long awaited little bit of rest after a summer full of training before heading back to Northwestern in mid-September for a team bonding excursion prior to the start of fall classes and practice. The competition roster for sixes is just 12 players, so spots for the upcoming Pan-American tournament won’t be earned easily. Even if she doesn’t make the roster for that tournament, Foster said USA Lacrosse is both preparing for the near future but looking ahead to the next couple years and she’s eager to take any opportunity to be part of the national team program. When she returns to Evanston in a few weeks to start her junior year, Foster knows she’ll be doing so having inherited Taylor’s role as the leader of the offense. Spending a week alongside some of the Wildcats’ greatest alums only instilled more pride in Foster for being a part of that lineage as she steps into a role of helping to keep it going. “A really big thing is going to be building up other people, kind of like how they did with me,” Foster said. “At this time last year, people didn’t know who that next person was going to be that would step up and now that’s me. So now I have to help get other people ready to be a bigger part of the offense and that’s going to be a lot of fun. “I know I’ll be seen as more of a leader. I’m more confident and I want them to lean on me while I lean on them and help build them up.”