Women's Lacrosse Dominates St. Joseph's

By MICHAEL HARVEY

On a day when freezing temperatures and snowfall were expected, the Lady Eagles lacrosse team heated up the field en route to a 12-2 blowout victory over the visiting St. Joseph’s College (NY) Golden Eagles this past Sunday.

The No. 17 ranked University of Mary Washington women’s lacrosse team tallied three goals in the first five minutes of the match and never looked back. Six different UMW players scored in the first half, resulting in a commanding 10-1 halftime lead.

The Eagles slowed down their offensive attack in the second half, but continued to stifle St. Joseph’s defensively. Mary Washington dominated the ball for much of the game, posting 46 shot attempts while holding the Golden Eagles to just five
UMW won the turnover battle, committing just 19 giveaways compared to 33 for St. Joseph’s, and the Eagles also finished with a 33-21 advantage in ground balls.

Mary Washington seniors Catherine Kennedy and Laruen Callison recorded three goals apiece in the win, while junior midfielder Keller Torrey recorded seven total points with two-goal, five-assist performance.

From the outside it would appear the Eagles played a great game overall, yet the team knows they still had a few lapses which they can improve upon.

“We had some first game jitters that had us playing down to our competition at times,” sophomore midfielder Jenna Petrucelli said.

Torrey agreed with her younger teammates’ assessment.

“We need to work on playing the entire game and play as well as we did in the first half in the second half,” Torrey said.

The Lady Eagles start out the season 1-0 and hope to use the win as a confidence-booster heading into today’s home contest against highly touted Gettysburg College at 4 p.m. The Bullets are the defending Division III national champions and are currently the top-ranked women’s lacrosse program at the D-III level.

“Winning the first game is very important because it sets the tone for the rest of the season,” Petrucelli said.

That tone, the Eagles hope, will not only help give them a chance to upset last year’s NCAA Tournament Champions, but also propel them onto greater things this season. The Lady Eagles players aren’t looking at rankings heading into this pivotal game, as in their eyes, those sorts of things don’t mean much.

“We aren’t going to focus on them being first or us being 17th,” Petrucelli said. “Every team is beatable, so if we focus on playing as a unit and trusting each other we believe we can beat anyone.”

Torrey once again sided with her younger counterpart.

“As long as we play our game and do everything we’ve practiced, we can beat Gettysburg and that’s what we plan on doing,” Torrey said.