The women’s lacrosse team had a roller coaster ride of a week, allowing four goals in the final three minutes to lose at Trinity 9-8 last Saturday, and then holding Bates scoreless after halftime at home Wednesday night for a thrilling 6-5 overtime victory. The team is now 4-4 overall and 2-4 in NESCAC play.
On Wednesday, the women trailed the Bobcats 5-1 at halftime after an anemic offensive performance in the first half. But the Polar Bears locked down on defense and scored four second half goals to send the game to an extra period, where Dana White ’15 scored with 3:01 left on the clock to secure the win.
Betsy Sachs ’14 led the squad with three goals. White, Jordan Smith ’14 and Lindsey Picard ’16 all scored for the Polar Bears, as well. Goalie Isabel Sippel ’15 saved 11 of 16 shots.
Despite Trinity stunning Bowdoin with four goals in the last 2:44 of last Saturday’s game, the Polar Bears played strong lacrosse for most of the day.
“Particularly at the very beginning of the game, we were doing a great job of not turning the ball over,” said Sachs. “We didn’t have a turnover until there were ten minutes left in the first half.”
Head Coach Elizabeth Grote agreed that the team played well for most of the day.
“We controlled the pace of the game,” said Grote. “Our offense got good possessions and quality opportunities on goal. Offensively, I thought we played a very solid game. Trinity is a team that likes to drive, and we were able to stop that for the majority of the game.”
Picard led the team with three goals against the Bantams. Sachs and Smith each contributed two goals of their own.
The Bantams led 4-3 after the first half. With 5:46 remaining in the second half, Bowdoin had risen to an 8-5 lead.
“We played really strong team defense as a whole throughout the entire game,” said Sachs. “Our 1-v-1 defense was looking awesome, and unfortunately they were calling a lot of free position shots, which [Trinity] was able to capitalize on.”
In the final few minutes, Trinity scored multiple timely goals to surmount a comeback win. Trinity’s Caroline Hayes scored the game-winning goal with 24 seconds remaining.
“It’s tough to lose a game like that, but at the same time our team played very well collectively,” said Grote. “We came off a tough loss to Middlebury and had some really great practices during the week, and a lot of good focus.”
The loss was a particularly hard one to take, as Trinity 7-1 (4-1 NESCAC) is among the conference’s elite teams.
“The NESCAC competition overall is tremendous. Everybody’s beating everybody,” said Grote.
“We keep seeing scores that are one or two games, and it doesn’t matter who’s playing who. So every game we go out there, and we have to expect that the other teams are playing their best, and that we play our best. It’s a tough conference,” she added.
Sachs agreed on the high level of competition.
“[Trinity] is always a really strong team. [They’re] very talented and tall. They’re intimidating to play against, but I don’t think that we let that stop us,” she said.
The Polar Bears will host Connecticut College on Saturday at noon. They play Colby in Waterville on April 8.
“I’d like to see our team play with a lot of consistency and bring a lot of passion to the field,” said Grote. “I think that our team has been doing a good job of lifting each other and will continue to do that.”