Over the previous week, the women’s lacrosse team played a trio of games, including their first true home game of the year. Despite intense play, the Cards fell 14-6 to then-ninth-ranked Colby on the Trinity turf Saturday, but they rebounded the following Monday to eke out a 10-9 win over Wheaton on their home field. On Wednesday, the Cards came back from four goals down to beat the Connecticut College Camels in New London by a score of 16-15.
Rain delayed the first Cardinals game at Wesleyan, so they used the Trinity turf for a contest against the Mules. After the first 30 minutes, the Wesleyan team trailed 6-5, but the Mules dominated the second half, outscoring the Cards 8-1 despite having only a 42-37 edge in shots for the game. The Trinity duo of Emma Miller and Lauren Barrett, who scored a combined seven Mule goals, were too much for the Wesleyan defense.
“Colby played a high pressure defense on Saturday that forced us to execute under pressure,” said head coach Holly Wheeler.
On Monday, North Field had finally drained sufficiently for a contest, the first on campus for the Cards, and the game failed to disappoint. After Wesleyan rocketed to an early 5-1 lead, tenth-ranked Wheaton tallied four unanswered goals to close out the first half and knot the score at five. The Wheaton onslaught continued, as they began the second half with two more goals. The Red and Black battled back, and Vanessa Jones’ ’05 third score of the day broke an 8-8 deadlock with 12:38 left, and the Red and Black went on to a 10-9 victory. Becca Vogel ’05 contributed five goals on the day.
Two days later, the scene was in New London against the Connecticut College Camels. Despite being just 1-5 entering the game, the Camels still held a 9-8 lead at the break, and expanded the edge to 13-9 with 22:08 remaining. After that, Becky Meredith ’06 caught fire, beating opposing goalie Paige Diamond four times, including three times in the final 20 minutes. Meredith also assisted on three scores. Vogel had another five-goal game, and Jones had four, but it was the sole score of Amanda Belichick ’07 with just 3:16 remaining in the contest that sealed the win, extending the Cardinals’ cushion to 16-14. Meredith Katz ’07 played 20 outstanding minutes in relief of Kate Jones ’06 in goal and got the victory, the first of her career.
“I was feeling pretty pumped,” Meredith said. “We had a lot of momentum going for us when we started coming from behind. It was a definite team effort, and we fed off each other with the intensity and stepped it up as a team.”
In the wake of the loss to Colby, the Cardinals have fallen in the national rankings from 14th to 17th. Their next game is Saturday at home against the second-ranked Middlebury squad, also a NESCAC rival. The Cards are hoping to do better than last season’s contest, an 11-5 road loss to the Panthers.
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