By Brian Bohl and Alana Pelosi
The loss of key players Kimberly Hillier, Becky Thorn, and Casey O’Connor plus a limited numbers of seniors may worry some coaches, but that certainly is not the case for Women’s Lacrosse coach Abby Morgan. What her squad lacks in age they make up for in smarts, athletic skills, and chemistry. As she puts it, “All of [the seniors] are great leaders for us and within our junior class, we have great leaders as well.”
Morgan described the team’s camaraderie as coming from their fall season. They have started to work together and get on the same page. “We don’t have any superstars, and they have to know each other’s strengths,” said Morgan.
With chemistry on and off the field, the team has been moving forward and building on what they been taught. Coach Danielle Piercy added, “We can’t teach them a desire to win – they’ve got it.”
In their first game, the Pride dominated the UMBC Retrievers with a blowout victory of 16-7. As Coach Morgan described it, “We played well. We executed what we worked on in practiced and we had good draw control which is something we worked on all preseason.”
As it was, the Pride outplayed the Retrievers in draw controls 19-6 and had excellent play from both the defense and offense. For the offense, sophomore midfielder Corrine Gandolfi led the assault with 4 goals, and Ashley Jones, Stephanie Rice, and Lauren Whitcomb each added two goals and an assist. Senior goalie Maisie Osteen gave an amazing performance as she notched a career-high 19 saves.
Amongst the girls leading the attack on the field were standouts from the freshman class, transfer student Katie Herscht and two-time All-American Stephanie Rice. Herscht came to Hofstra after Ohio University’s program was cut, and as Morgan describes, “Very quickly understood our defensive, and that really helped her make an impact quickly.”
Rice, who Morgan describes as having “a nose for scoring,” quickly got to work by notching two goals and an assist in her first game against UMBC.
The Pride began the season on a win streak by improving their record to 2-0, defeating the University of New Hampshire Wildcats 8-7 in the home opener at James M. Shuart Stadium. The game was a back-and-forth contest for the first half, but early in the second the Pride took the lead and held onto it after a goal by sophomore attack Courtney O’Connor.
In addition to O’Connor’s go-ahead goal, five other Pride players added goals, with Gandolfi and Whitcomb scoring two a piece.
On Tuesday, February 26, the team met their biggest hurdle thus far in a 22-4 defeat to the defending national champions, the Northwestern University Wildcats.
The Wildcats dominated the entire first half, but were met with resistance when the Pride battled back to score four goals in the second. Coach Morgan said of the loss, “We just didn’t execute it. We didn’t execute the things we talked about.”
Despite the loss, the Pride players are determined to stay focused and prepare themselves for the competition they will face. With a tough schedule ahead and the next two games on the road, the Pride is not about to take any of their games for granted.
As Coach Morgan put it, “The CAA conference is so competitive, and you can’t look past anyone. We have to take it one game at a time and be mentally and physically prepared.”