Following a difficult loss last weekend, the women’s lacrosse team bounced back with an impressive 14-8 win over in conference rival Quinnipiac on Saturday. With the win Monmouth improves to an overall record of 3-7 and a begins Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) play 1-0.
Head Coach Jordan Trautman offered her thoughts on what winning the first conference game means. “It is huge to start conference play with a win, we had been talking about how important conference play is. So to say it and then actually show up with a win is going to help the momentum and confidence of the team,” she said.
The Hawks stormed out to an early lead and never looked back en route to their 14-8 home win. Seven different players scored and four had multiple goals in the effort. Senior attack Alexa Smith led the way with a team high four goals. Junior attack Jenny Staines and senior midfielder Claudia LaMarca also played exceptionally well, each contributing a total of five points in the win.
Monmouth took the early 3-0 advantage within minutes as Smith buried two straight goals right off the tip and Staines followed soon with the third. Quinnipiac got the on scoreboard at the 24:37 mark but Monmouth responded in fashion with a three-goal run to add some length to their lead.
The Bobcats reacted to their 6-1 deficit with two goals to close the gap to half. Both teams would exchange goals over the remainder of the half and the Hawks would go into the half with an 8-5 advantage.
Monmouth’s offense unleashed four straight goals right out of the half in large part due to two yellow card opportunities. Staines buried the first goal of the run and senior midfielder Caroline Corbliss added two goals of her own to make the score 12-5.
Quinnipiac refused to go down lightly and went on their own three goal stretch to claw back to within four with five minutes left. Senior midfielder Claudia LaMarca ended the run and all hopes of a comeback for the Bobcats with two back to back goals to finish the game.
Even though the final score indicates a runaway win for the Hawks the stat sheet tells a different story. For instance, Monmouth registered a total of 27 shots compared to Quinnipiac’s 24. The difference was that Monmouth was able to put more of those shots on goal, with a total of 24 on goal compared to Quinnipiac’s 17.
The Hawks defense was also noticeably more aggressive in this game. The team was called for a total of 35 fouls compared to the Bobcat’s 23.
“We went into a different defense today, which was more high energy, high tempo. We had more fouls but I think it was creating more confidence and they were just playing instead of thinking about it and we made more risky decisions,” Trautman said.
Another reason for Monmouth’s win was their ability to take advantage of Quinnipiac’s yellow cards. The Hawks converted all three of their player up opportunities and successfully killed off their yellow card. Additionally, junior goalkeeper Riley Brager continued her exceptional play, making nine saves in the win.
“I thought it was a full team effort which I really appreciated. I was proud of the effort from the bench to the goalies to the offense, everyone was involved in the energy and the excitement,” Trautman said.
The Hawks next travel up to Poughkeepsie, NY to take on Marist next Saturday at 3:00 p.m. Last year’s matchup was tightly contested and resulted in a 13-10 win for the Hawks.
PHOTO COURTESY of Monmouth Athletics
