Women’s Lacrosse Lights Up in Spring Break Tilt

This past Saturday afternoon on Tyler’s field, the Colgate women’s lacrosse team competed against American University. The Colgate Raiders earned a 15-12 victory over the Eagles in their second Patriot League game of the season.

Junior midfielder Courtney Miller played an essential role in the team’s success, tally­ing six points in the win with four goals and two assists.

“Taking smart shots and making good decisions on when to go to cage and when not to.” Miller said when asked how she found her success.

Junior attacker Katie Sullivan also had a key impact on the score sheet with four total points on two goals and two assists.

“I think our attack has been so success­ful because we are very aware of each other’s strengths and always do our best to create opportunities for ourselves and each other,” Sullivan said. “Kate Sheridan and I both play around the crease, so when the Ameri­can defenders put pressure behind it was easy for us to capitalize on the risks they took and use the crease to our advantage.”

Sophomore attacker Katie Sheridan had a career-high two goals and one assist. Overall, six Colgate players contributed two or more goals to the victory. Junior goalie Christina Roa had nine saves on the day.

Colgate (4-4) took a strong lead in the opening minutes of the first half with an 8-2 advantage over the Eagles. First-years Monica White and Alison Flood scored the opening two goals of the game, followed by American’s Chiara Speziale who added her first goal of the day to the scoreboard. Sheri­dan and Miller scored two goals apiece dur­ing the first 19 minutes of play and White contributed her second goal with 11:19 left in the first half.

The Eagles challenged back with three out of the next four goals to cut Colgate’s lead to 9-5 going into halftime. Miller scored the Raiders’ lone goal in the final stretch of play in the half.

The second frame had an ominous start as the Eagles attempted to steal the lead. Emily Maher of American weakened the gap with a point bringing the score to 9-6 just one minute into the half. Sullivan retaliated with her second goal of the game nearly two minutes later. The Eagles, gaining momen­tum, shook things up with a string of three consecutive goals, bringing the score to 10-9 with 21:26 remaining in the game.

Sophomore Amanda O’Sullivan stopped the bleeding with her first tally of the game to push the lead up to 11-9. After White received a yellow card, American took its man-up advantage straight to the back of the net with two goals.

The Raiders were able to close out the game strong, scoring four of the next five goals to earn the victory over the Eagles. O’Sullivan and Flood each netted their second points of the game. Though senior Colleen Bubnack was faceguarded, with just 11 seconds left in the game, she managed to score a goal, making it the sixteenth game in a row that she has been on the score­board. The Raiders now are 10-4 against American University.

American out-shot Colgate each half, taking 19 shots in the first half and 16 shots in the second, while the Raiders took a mere 12 shots each half. However, Colgate was able to capitalize successful­ly on these opportunities. American also led the score sheet with 16 ground balls and 17 draw controls, while the Raiders fell behind with 11 ground balls and 12 draw controls.

Overall, the women feel very excited about going 2-0 in the Patriot League.

“Being 2-0 in the Patriot league is very exciting for us,” Miller said. “I think that other teams should be afraid. I think the reason we’re doing so well is because of our preparation for games and our strong sense of togetherness. Our team is re­ally close and when we’re all pumped for a game, we win. Our goal is to win the Patriot League.”

“It’s really exciting that we’re 2-0 in the Patriot League, especially given the tough op­ponents we have faced so far,” Sullivan agreed. “Beating Lehigh was a huge accomplishment for us because they are a very strong team and were ranked above us in the preseason polls. We were really focused going into the game, and I think that the confidence that our coaches have instilled in us since we came back in January has been crucial to our suc­cess. Playing American at home was also really exciting, and after an exhausting week of trav­el and playing in Florida, we gave everything we had left and were able to pull out another team win. Looking forward, our final goal, of course, is to host the Patriot League Tour­nament, but I think the team plans to take one game at a time, starting with Holy Cross this weekend.”

Colgate will next take the field this Sat­urday when it travels to Holy Cross. Game time is set for 4 p.m.