Snow on the ground and freezing temperatures can only mean one thing for the spring; Lacrosse season is upon us. However, despite the cold temperatures the Fairfield women’s lacrosse team was unable to pull out wins in their opening weekend.
“The turnovers and the attack transition was our biggest problem,” said Head Coach Stacey McCue about the 8-7 loss to Villanova on Saturday and the 14-7 loss to Yale University on Monday night.
The games were the first for the Stags which now puts them at a 0-2 overall record. The win for the Wildcats and the Bulldogs set both teams at a 1-0 record.
The losses put a lot of emphasis on the weak spots of the Stags play, especially in the offensive end.
“In the offensive end, that was what was hurting us. We were taking care of the ball on the offensive end and ended up playing defense the whole game,” McCue said of the Yale game. “Yale is aggressive, they’re a good team. They put a lot of pressure on us, but were just sloppy.”
Sophomore Rebecca White agrees with the lack of tight playing but hopes that the losses only get the team more fired up. “It’s so frustrating to lose that I think everyone is just going to take our mistakes in the past two games and use that to move forward and to pump us up and get motivated because everyone hates to lose,” she said.
However, White does not have much to be frustrated about as she led the Stags over the weekend with four goals total.
Her two goals against Villanova were a major turning point for the Stags starting in the second half. After being down 3-2 going into the second half White opened up with a goal in the first two minutes of the half. Her goal was followed 10 seconds later by Abbey Goodwin ’09 to give Fairfield a 4-3 lead over the Wildcats.
The Wildcats would not relent and came back with back-to-back goals to recapture the lead. White had her second goal of the game in the 42nd minute which was followed by a goal from Kylee Martin ’09 one minute later. The 6-5 lead would be the last of the game for the Stags who ended up falling 8-7.
The game against Yale came out a lot slower as the Stags found their first and only goal of the half from Mary Vallely ’08, seven minutes into the game. Fairfield would end the half down by a margin of 7-1. Vallely and White both tried to rally the Stags at the start of the second half with two goals, but it was not enough to stop the Bulldogs stellar offense.
Yale would go up 11-3, their biggest lead of the game. However, Fairfield came back to outscore Yale 4-3 in the last eight minutes of the game, but it was eight minutes too late. Fairfield fell to a final score of 14-7.
Despite the losses, the Stags strong performances by Vallely, White and goaltender Lauren Chatnik ’09 were all positives for Fairfield.
“Lauren Chatnik in the goal hands down has done a phenomenal job,” said McCue of Chatnik’s high 13 saves on Monday and eight saves on Saturday. McCue is also glad to see Vallely, Caroline Madrak ’08 and Kelly Barnes ’10 stepping up to the challenges over the weekend.
However, even though the Stags loss margin was rather high, both Chatnik and McCue are proud of their strong defensive effort.
“Defense is doing a great job right now; they have really stepped up a ton and we just need to work on communication,” said Chatnik. McCue agreed that she does not want defense to get a bad rap for the losses, saying that “we just need to start capitalizing on our offense.”
Although a 0-2 starting record is not what Fairfield was hoping for, they are still in the beginning of the season.
“If we can put it all together and stay a little bit more composed I think we will be fine,” said McCue. “We have been doing it in practice and preseason and I’m hoping that its just first game jitters”
Next on the Stags path is Boston College who they will face at 1 p.m. in Boston on Saturday.
“I would say that Yale is probably the toughest team we play along with Boston College,” McCue said of the upcoming game. “We just need to stay positive. It is early and to we just need to keep working to improve and to just keep moving forward.”
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