Today: Mar 28, 2024

Stonehill quiets Owls

Matt GadSports Writer

Southern’s women’s lacrosse team fell to Stonehill, 15-5, on March 25. The Owls are now 3-3 on the season, with a 1-2 mark in conference play.

“When we don’t show up, this is the kind of thing that happens,” head coach Maureen Spellman said. “It’s not to take anything away from them, they’re a good team, but when you don’t show up you can get pummeled.”

March 20, the Owls had another rough go at things, losing to Mercy College 19-4 in a game played at Albertus Magnus’ Celentano Field. Mercy has since improved to 5-0, while Southern is sitting at a .500 mark.

Captain Nicole Healey said, after Saturday’s game: “We came out here with a gameplan and we simply didn’t execute it. Stonehill’s a good team, but we definitely could’ve been, and should’ve been, a lot more competitive.”

Southern only had 15 total shots on goal throughout the entire game, while Stonehill was able to double that, and then some. However, the Owls only trailed 23-19 on ground balls and had more per-period saves than their opponent, totaling out a 12-6 advantage.

“We need to focus and we need to go back to the basics,” Spellman said. “It’s as simple as that— we just need to get back to the basics.”

Spellman said their focus in the interim was just prepping for top-ranked Adelphi, the number one women’s lacrosse team in all of Division II. An upset win would move the Owls past the .500 mark and even things up in conference play on the year.

Healey said the keys to victory against Adelphi would be to “clean up our passing attack, work on ground balls and then just continue with the [rest of the] game plan.”

Despite the rocky start to this year’s campaign, Spellman, now in her fourth season, has still made history. The 2015 season finished with the Owls tying their most successful win total ever. They lost just eight games that season and only gave up 14 goals.

Coach Spellman was a lacrosse player for the University of New Haven and is their all-time leader in saves. In a four-year career, she made All-Region twice, and was also a Northeast-10 Conference all-team selection.

Spellman is assisted by Betsy Vendel, who previously coached at the United States Coast Guard Academy and played for Central Connecticut State, and Kevin Siedlecki, an English teacher and Daniel Hand High School’s own women’s lacrosse head coach.

Later this season, the Owls will also face Assumption College April 18 at home and go on the road April 22 and 26 to take on Le Moyne and American International College, respectively. Their final regular-season game is set for April 29, a 12 p.m start against Southern New Hampshire University.

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