Women’s lacrosse is still searching for its first conference win after dropping two contests to Amherst and Colby.
Lily Segal, Staff Photographer
The women’s lacrosse team had a busy week of play, having faced NESCAC rivals Colby and Amherst. In the past 10 years, Wesleyan has won only one game against each of these two squads. With history against them, Wesleyan came out looking for a big upset against the Mules and Lord Jeffs.
The Cards faced off against Colby on the afternoon of Saturday, March 28. Wesleyan came out looking strong and poised. The Cards were able to take a 2-1 lead in the first quarter of the game with the two goals coming from Meredith Smith ’17, who has a team-leading total of 18 goals on the season. Colby quickly fired back with two goals of their own, making the score 3-2. Each team scored one more goal during the half.
Wesleyan limited Colby, which is third-ranked nationally, to just seven shots on net and nine total shots over the opening 30 minutes to go into halftime trailing by a single goal, 4-3.
The start of the second half did not go as well for the Cards, as Colby scored five straight goals over the first 9:02 of the half, putting the game out of reach with a 9-3 lead.
Morgan Moubayed ’17 spoke to how the team’s rough starts in the second half have been a common problem for the squad.
“We need to improve our mentality coming out of the half, being just as strong as we started the game, and keeping up our intensity for the full 60 minutes as opposed to coming out hard for just the first half,” Moubayed said. “This has been an ongoing problem throughout our past games and something we are working to fix.”
Wesleyan made two of the final three goals as Liana Mathias ’17 got her second, giving her 15 on the season. Rachel Aronow ’17 scored the game’s final goal at the 5:30 mark on a free-position attempt, and it was her eighth goal of the year.
Wesleyan took 10 shots, nine of which were on cage during the first half of the game. While second-half shots favored the Mules, 12-11, the overall shots were even in the game, 21-21, while Wesleyan put 19 of its 21 attempts on goal. Colby found the target 18 times with Cardinal keeper Nina Labovich ’16 collecting eight saves. However, the Colby goalie seemed to be the difference maker in the 10-5 game, with eight stops in the second half and a total of 14 in the entire contest.
In their next contest at home on Wednesday, April 1, the Cardinals took on the tough, talented, and nationally ranked Amherst. Wesleyan was unable to come out on top of its NESCAC opponent, once again.
This Little Three matchup started off slow for Wes as Amherst was able to take a promising 7-3 advantage by the end of the first half. The three Wesleyan goals came unassisted from Leah Sherman ’15, Moubayed on an assist from Martha Harding ’16, and Mathias off a pass from Smith. Wes was able to score five goals in the second half, with two coming from Aronow, Smith, Mathias, and Becca Phillips ’17.
However, these five goals were not enough, as the Lord Jeffs took the game with 7 goals in the second half and 14 goals overall. In total, Amherst outshot the Cards, 25-16.
Amherst was able to score at most opportunities given to them, converting 14 of 21 shots on net, which proved to be the ultimate difference maker since both teams had virtually the same number of draws, ground balls, and turnovers.
The Cards have another important in-conference game this coming Saturday, April 4. They will be playing away at Tufts. Wesleyan’s last win against the Jumbos came in 2007, and the all-time record is 33 to 5 in favor of Tufts.
“For the remainder of our season, the next five games are crucial for us,” Moubayed said. “Our focus and motto has really been to take it one game at a time, and our next upcoming game is against Tufts, which will be a huge game if we can pull out a W. All of our next games will be competitive and we cannot take any of them lightly. To beat one team in the Little Three would be a huge step for our program, so beating Williams next week would also be huge for us!”