By Alana Pelosi
After dropping their last three games, the women’s lacrosse team hopes to turn things around and go back their winning ways when they face Brown University at home on Saturday. Since losing to Cornell and Syracuse this past weekend, the Pride’s record now sinks to a less-than-favorable 2-3.
The Pride started off their road trip against Cornell on Friday, March 12, but the game eventually hit the skids when Mother Nature reared her head.
The match up initially started off as a close competition, but as rain turned to snow the turf at Schoellkopf Field took the brunt of it.
With 15:19 left in the second half and Cornell leading 6-4, the coaches rather than the referees decided to call the game out of concern for their players. As Coach Abby Morgan put it, “[It] was just a debacle. After half time the field started to get covered and the snow was so wet and big that it just became a slide n’ slide.”
The game, which Morgan believed up until the point of cancelation should have been a tie, was replayed with much worse results. Following the Cornell game Friday, the team headed further north to face fifth ranked Syracuse before facing Cornell again on Monday. In the second game against the “big red,” Cornell led the way the entire game, leading 4-1 at half time and winning 14-3. Coach Morgan said, “At Cornell the second time we didn’t play, we weren’t aggressive and we didn’t hustle.”
Despite a busy weekend upstate, Morgan did not see that as a physical obstacle for the girls, rather a mental one. As she explained, “Cornell played back to back games too and we didn’t look tired but I think mentally it took a toll.”
That busy week also included a Sunday game against the fifth ranked and defending Big East champions, Syracuse. After the first half, the game was close with the teams neck and neck in ground balls and shots with Hofstra leading draw controls and the score 10-8 in Syracuse’s favor. “We really played two and a half games and of the five halves, one was a real showing of us and we played awesome in that half.” Said Morgan.
The second half, however, was when things started to get messy. Syracuse broke away with ten goals as opposed to Hofstra’s two after the Pride failed to execute what they had in the first half. Despite the rough past to week, Coach Morgan is optimistic that they can fix things before welcoming the Brown Bears, who share a 2-3 record, to James M. Shuart Stadium on Saturday. While sticking to a similar game strategy and simplifying things especially on the attacking end, Coach Morgan hopes that her team will find success earlier and more easily in the next game. That early success is just what the vengeful team is waiting hoping for. “Our team has such a high standard that they’ve taken the last three games really hard.” Said Morgan. Eager to turn things around, the team is not about to let these three losses effect them just yet, if anything they are going to use it as a learning experience.
Said coach Morgan, “The bottom line is that we learned a lot from the non-league schedule and the opponents we faced and later on these loses with help us with the tough conference that we’re going to face.”