By Elliott Bell
The Pride women’s lacrosse team couldn’t overcome a sluggish start in its season opener, falling to the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers University 12-7 Tuesday.
The loss drops the Pride to (0-1) on the season. Rutgers improves to (1-1) after losing to Northwestern to start the season.
Senior Maggie Bopp led the way for the Knights with four goals, including three in the first half alone.
It looked like this game was going to be a cakewalk from the very beginning. The Knights were able to score on their first four shots, and accumulated a 5-0 lead in the first 16 minutes of play.
The Pride got its first goal of the match at 16:54 when junior Jill Wienecke snuck one past the Knight’s goalie.
Rutgers answered right back and pushed the lead to 6-1 with just over seven minutes to go in the first half.
Freshman Kim Hillier scored her first career goal at the 5:45 mark of the first half and added another with 1:17 remaining in the half to keep the game close.
The Pride came out in the second half looking like a different team. There was more of a hop in each player’s step, and it looked as if the Pride wanted to prove the first half was just a fluke.
It scored three of the first five goals, and cut the lead to 8-6. Caitlin Connolly and Tara Buecker each had a goal.
That was as close as it would get on this day for the Pride. The Knights took over the game from that point and ran all over hapless home team in the late second half.
Despite it all, head coach Shelley Laes-Bawcombe remained optimistic after the game.
“It’s the beginning of the season. I am going to stay positive. We have a lot of potential, and this was our first test. So now we have bounce back,” Bawcombe said.
She knows all to well that things just don’t always happen right away for a team. This team has a lot of new faces, and she is aware that time is needed.
“It’s game to game to game. We are going to get better as we play and the players get more comfortable with their roles. But until that happens, we’ll have learning experiences,” Bawcombe stressed.
Knowing that the future should be brighter for this team doesn’t change the fact that this was a bad loss. Bawcombe acknowledged that some things were just not satisfactory.
“I thought we created good shooting opportunities, but the actual shots weren’t the best, Bawcombe said, who added, “And we had a couple of defensive lapses that were huge and unacceptable.”
The Pride will practice hard and try improving in the areas it struggled this week as it prepares to take on a strong University of Massachusetts team this Tuesday at home.