Kat Vasquez
Associate Sports Editor
The Millersville University women’s lacrosse team opened its first game of the season at Biemesderfer Stadium on February 18th, 2019 against our ongoing rivals Georgian Court Lions. It also marked the first game for new head coach Cindy Wilson.
Unfortunately, they had a hard fought defeat with a final score of 18-7. In the past, Millersville dealt with a challenge against the Lions when they opened their last season; Georgian Court went on to a record of (13-6) and a perfect 9-0 record in the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC), and continued its way to win the conference championship last year.
The match started out with Genevieve Speights who scored within the first two minutes of the game; the first goal of the season. Erin Fagan followed after Speights, doubling the Marauder lead to 2-0 less than 20 seconds later off a pass from Calie Swegon. The Lions respond back and took over Biemesderfer Stadium by scoring 10 goals in the stretch to halftime. Georgian players Arianna Quinlan and Samantha Fernandez each score three goals during the stretch , while Nicole Barbella contributed and assisted with the goals. After halftime, Marauder Sarah Leverentz came out strong and scored the first two goals in under five minutes with assist from Sara Burney. Not even 30 seconds later after the previous goal, Grace Cobaugh scored the first goal of her collegiate career with a free-position shot.
Unfortunately, their successful goals didn’t last long when Georgian Court scored the next seven goals, three of them coming from Fernandez and three being assisted by Barbella. Millersville didn’t give up and put a 3-0 run together goal being scored by Mary Dorley off a free-position shot with 10:44 left on the clock. Then Eliza McNamara scored goal in the 7:02 mark off an assist from Speights, who then scored the final goal of the match for the Marauders with 4:06 remaining in the game. The end defeat and the final score was 18-7.
This excruciating match against Georgian Court was hard to deal with for Millersville. They came strong and achieved a phenomenal performance altogether.
New head coach Cindy Wilson had some words about Women’s first opener, “After the game we talked about everyone understanding their role and being able to execute it. We also talked about having a growth mindset. Every team is going to have losses throughout the season. Playing good teams early allows us to see our holes and see where we are at. These are the kind of experiences we can learn from in order to grow. There’s going to be adversity throughout the season, it’s just a matter of how we respond to it and how we use it to our benefit in order to move forward.”
Tune in for the Marauders Women Lacrosse next home game against Wilmington University on Wednesday February 27th, 2019 at 4:00 pm at Biemesderfer Stadium.
