After opening the spring season ranked sixth nationally, a bruised, broken and frustrated Cardinal squad has dropped four straight league games and fallen from the nation’s top-20. Traveling to Conn. College on Wednesday and Bowdoin for a Saturday afternoon game, the boys in red and black were unable to improve their standing in the league as they dropped both contests, falling 7-6 in the final minute to lose a heartbreaker against the Camels, and suffering an offensive drought in a 9-3 loss to the Polar Bears.
The Cardinals played tough in the weekday match up at Conn., battling back from a 4-3 halftime deficit to hold a slim 6-5 advantage heading into the final period. The lead wouldn’t hold though, as the Camels’ Dave Schwartz netted two of his four scores in the final period, the second coming with 56 seconds remaining, to put away the Cardinals in dramatic fashion. Jordan Funt ’06 put accurate shots on net and picked up two scores for Wes on an afternoon that saw the Cardinals take 40 shots.
“We need to up our shooting percentage,” said captain Chris Meade ’05. “Especially in a game like Conn. where we out shot the Camels by almost twenty shots. If you asked anybody on the team, we would have said we were ready to put that game away. We ended up not being able to put the ball in the net.”
The shooting problems continued for Wesleyan in their match up with Bowdoin, as the team was held to just 16 total shots and three goals, allowing the Polar Bears to take the victory and climb into a tie for 12th nationally (USILA) with Little Three rival Amherst.
“The defense has been playing well,” Meade said. “Holding teams to seven and nine should give us a chance to win games, but with playmakers hurt and with the offense not working on all cylinders, we haven’t been able to string it together. Dropping passes, turning the ball over, and making bad decisions; we’re beating ourselves.”
With a variety of problems keeping the squad out of the win column, standout deficiencies in the early going have been clearing the defensive zone, and the effect of injuries on the Cardinal attack. Admittedly, a bad ankle has slowed Meade considerably, and a hamstring injury to midfielder Glenn Adams has left the attack with limited weapons. In order to compensate for a lack of explosiveness on offense, position shifting and putting new, sometimes younger, players in attack and midfield roles has changed the face of the team for the moment.
“At one point during the Bowdoin game, [Chris] Knacke [’05] and I were playing defense,” Meade said. “We’ve been playing attack together since freshman year. Its scary times when you’re forced into that kind of experimentation.”
Struggles to move the ball out of the defensive zone have allowed teams to catch the Cardinals in transition and take advantage of fast breaks.
“Our 6-on-6 defense is solid,” said Phil Amidon ’05 “Most of the goals we’re allowing are in transition. Teams are stealing passes and winning groundballs and we end up facing a man-up break.”
With only five league games remaining, the Cardinals have to take four out of five in order to have any chance at the post season.
“We need to understand that our backs are against the wall,” Meade said. “We have three weeks to play lacrosse. Five games. That’s it. We are making a lot of young mistakes and if we can’t get through the growing process and come together we are going to struggle through the next five games.”
The Cardinals look for their first NESCAC win tomorrow at home against visiting Trinity (1-4).
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