Jaylen Carr – Sports Editor
The women’s lacrosse team lost against their NE10 rival, Adelphi University, 17-7, which drops the Owls to a 3-4 conference record.
“We’re playing scared, and we’re playing intimidated. It takes some time to get out of the mindset,” Head Coach Kevin Siedlecki said. “They are a better team than us, I’m not going to pretend that we are better than them, but they aren’t that much better.”
Siedlecki said the team played strong for 30 minutes but not 60 minutes. “We made some mistakes that are just so uncharacteristic, things I haven’t seen all season.”
Drop balls and bad passes were the many areas that contributed to the 10-point loss, Siedlecki said.
Attack Karlie Rowe, a graduate student, said, “I think it was just a good learning experience for us. It shows that we can’t come out flat in any quarter against these types of teams. We have to play all 60 minutes of the game, and that is something we are obviously working on.”
After the 21-11 win against Franklin Pierce on April 1, it was tough losing this game, Rowe said. “We are going to see more of these types of teams in the future, so we just got to learn from it and keep it going.”
Adelphi is the second-rank team in the NE10 Southwest Division, with a 7-3 record, which Siedlecki knew would present some challenges to the team. Overall, the Owls dropped to a 7-4 season record.
“We have to recognize that it is just another team of college girls who play lacrosse after class just like we do,” Siedlecki said. “Whatever the name across the front of the jersey is, we can’t let that get in our heads.”
Late in the first quarter, the goalkeeper Caelan Connors, a graduate student, walked off the field limping and missed the first 5 minutes of the second quarter due to her injury.
“I turned around because my back was turned to the girl who had the ball. When she threw the ball, I reacted, and I didn’t have enough time,” Connors said. “I folded because it is a natural instinct.”
Connors could still save the ball from going in but got assistance from the head athletic trainer, Chris Leary, once the first quarter ended.
“He put a pad on my leg so then if I got hit again, which I did twice in the same spot, I wouldn’t hurt as much,” Connors said. “It was a big help.”
Despite the injury, Connors had 20 saves which tied for fifth all-time in program history.
The Owls scored three goals in the first half, while Adelphi scored nine. The Owls were scoreless in the first quarter and scored their first score until the 12:53 mark in the second quarter.
Adelphi was able to get scoring from eight different players on the team. The Owls struggled through the first half, getting points because of Adelphi’s defense.
Attack Bayleigh Tackas, a graduate student, set four records in Saturday’s matchup against Franklin Pierce, scoring a goal in the first half. Rowe also helped the team offensively by scoring a goal in the first half.
Tackas, one of the team captains, said during the game that the team was playing scared, according to Siedlecki.
“They are definitely the better team,” Siedlecki said. “We are not there yet. I’m not going to pretend that I thought we should’ve kicked their butts, but we definitely could’ve hung in there a little better. It is all mental.”
Connors said the team played well in the first quarter, but the team has to have confidence for four quarters.
“We have to just get out of heads sometimes,” Connors said. “They had a really good offense, so our defense played really well with them,”
Siedlecki said the team has to realize that they are a good team. “It is a lot of good teams in our league.”
The team will work on throwing and catching under pressure, Rowe said.
“We don’t see many zone defenses,” Siedlecki said. “Adelphi has been running the same zone for years.”
Siedlecki said they ran one of their best plays to beat zone defense, but the team did run the play properly until the final 10 seconds of the game.
The Owls suffered their first loss since playing Pace University on March 21. They play three of the next four games on the road against some of their NE10 rivals.