Katherine Krajcik – Special to the Southern News
Assistant Coach Caitlin White of the Owls women’s lacrosse team knew exactly what they were going up against before the home game had even started last Thursday night.
White was a four-year team member and team captain for the Assumption College Greyhounds just two years ago– And she had warned the Owls about the Greyhound’s strengths and weaknesses, but they still came up short one point in an emotional defeat, 13-14.
The beginning of the first half looked promising when junior Jennifer McCarthy scored two goals back-to-back and the Owls were up 2-1, but before the half ended, the Greyhounds scored five goals and the Owls were down 3-7.
Going into the second half, the temperature dropped, but they did not give up– especially freshman midfielders Carolynn Keal and Nicole Healey.
“If we had two more minutes I feel like we could have made a difference,” said Keal, “we had a shaky first half but we were hungry for the win in the second half.”
Keal scored two of her three goals and registered an assist in the second half.
Healey scored all three of her goals and junior Eliza Doane scored her first goal of the season in the second half as well.
“I think it was probably the best game that I have played all season, but it is hard getting the loss,” said Healey, “this is a game that we feel like we could have and should have won.”
After Keal’s third goal with 1:52 left in the second half, the Owls were down 11-14.
Then McCarthy and Junior Lauren Anderson scored and they were only down 13-14 with 39 seconds left.
Live Video, Stats Available For Today’s Women’s Lacrosse Game @SCSU_Wlax http://t.co/VxMpYlBb31
— SCSU Athletics (@SCSU_Owls) April 2, 2015
A fight to the bitter end was evident.
“It is really frustrating when you lose by one,” said Keal, “especially when teams stall at the end because you do not have the ball…I really thought we were going to win that one.”
According to Southern’s athletic website, the Owls lost to the Greyhounds 8-21 last year, so a lot of progress has been made against this fellow Northeast-10 Conference team.
“[Assumption] has a large bench which we unfortunately do not have right now so it is a little hard to compete with when they can put more players in,” said coach White.
Leading up to the game, “coach White warned us of a couple players and pointed out who the left handers were on the team,” said Keal.
“Coach White is an incredible assistant coach and she is one to tell you how it is,” said Keal, “she does not sugar coat things and you can always hear her on the field.”
The Owls are looking to improve on a couple of skill sets as the season progresses–One of them including faster transitions from the defensive zone to the offensive zone.
“We are getting stuck in the midfield a lot so we are working on getting the ball out of the defense and into the offense’s sticks more quickly,” said Keal.
Another improvement that the Owls are working towards is just attaining more “heart” and “drive” according to assistant coach White.
“We had a tough stretch at the beginning,” said Healey, “we played a lot of good teams and we’ll play more good teams [this season], but we’ll definitely be a lot more competitive moving forward.”
