Entering the season as the fifth-ranked team in the nation, the women's lacrosse team posted a 2-1 record on their spring road trip, defeating Richmond and Duke but falling to fourth-ranked James Madison University. The Big Green will look to extend their two game winning streak when they face Boston College today at home.
In the season opener against James Madison, the Big Green kept it close but could not muster enough offense power to claim the victory as they fell 8-5 to the Dukes.
Thanks to goals from Kim Mendelson '97, Jennifer Greene '98 and Julia Morrill '98, the Big Green went into halftime with a 3-3 tie.
The Dukes struck quickly after halftime, however, outscoring the Big Green 3-1 in the early part of the second half. Even though they controlled the ball for the remainder of the half, Dartmouth was unable to close the gap.
"That was a game we could have won," Mendelson said. "We were tied at halftime and had possession of the ball for most of the game. We just failed to execute, which may have been a result of it being our first game, whereas they had four or five games under their belt already. Hopefully we'll get another chance at them later in the season."
"We have a young team, and we were nervous going in to the game because we really didn't know what to expect. JMU is a good team, and I feel we needed to attack them and really go at them hard, and unfortunately we were probably a little tentative and jittery, which didn't allow us to do that," Morrill said.
Two days later in Durham, what should have been an easy victory proved to be a test. The Big Green began surprisingly slow against a Duke team in its first year of varsity play.
"Duke is a new team in their first varsity year, and as a result we came into the game pretty relaxed and unfocused, which allowed them to get ahead early," attacker Allison Wiener '99 said. "In the second half we played well enough to come from behind, but we should have played better."
It was Morrill who took control and jump-started the offense.
The team found themselves trailing in the first half before finally playing well enough to grab the lead. The comeback began as Morrill started off the attack by scoring five goals to give Dartmouth the lead.
The Big Green never looked back and outshot the Blue Devils 28-15 on their way to a 10-7 victory. The team also got offensive production from others as Dune Thorne '98 scored two important goals, while Weze Shorts '99 tallied her first collegiate goal.
"We may have won, but it was disappointing because we weren't prepared and as a result instead of playing like a team, it became more of an individual game," Morrill said.
The Big Green routed Richmond 16-6 last Saturday to finish off the Southern road trip. While Morrill had another big afternoon contributing four goals, attacker Mendelson was the offensive star of the afternoon.
Mendelson scored six goals and notched her seventh point by setting up one of Morrill's goals. Kelly Hannigan '97 scored for the second game in a row. Both she and Greene posted two goals against a suspect Spider goaltender who gave up 16 goals on only 21 shots.
"Our teamwork really came together against Richmond," Mendelson said. "Almost all of our goals were assisted goals, and instead of individuals trying to step up like in previous games, the team really stepped it up together."
"We really started connecting our passes in the midfield to our attack, we played excellent defense and Sarah [Carlson '99] made a lot of good saves. It was a complete team effort, and, as a result, it was a great game," Wiener said.
The team will follow up today's home game against Boston College with the Ivy League opener Saturday.
"BC has always given us a tough game, so we need to make sure we do the little things like passing and catching right and make sure we don't overlook this game thinking about Princeton," Morrill said.
