Andreas Jeninga/The Hoya Sophomore midfielder Lucy Poole evades defenders in the women’s 16-8 over Cornell.
The players may be different, but the style remains largely the same.
The Georgetown women’s lacrosse team opened its season Saturday at noon against Cornell with six new starters taking the field. Yet just 42 seconds later, the Hoyas’ high-powered offense took over and put them one goal closer to an eventual 16-8 rout of the No. 15 Big Red.
Senior midfielder Gloria Lozano opened season scoring for Georgetown. A short while later, senior midfielder Michi Ellers took possession of the ball, ran it the length of the field into the heart of the Cornell defense and found the back of the cage, putting Georgetown up 2-0.
Lozano and Ellers were joined in the starting lineup by freshmen Schuyler Sutton, Coco Stanwick and Laura Cipro. Junior midfielder Lauren Redler and attack Catherine Elbe also joined the starting lineup.
“Before the game I brought over the six players who were starting for the first time. Those players . made the difference out there,” Head Coach Kim Simons said. “I knew Gloria and Michi and [Lauryn] Bernier were going to play great, but it was the players that were starting for the first time . who really stepped up.”
In total, Georgetown reeled off seven consecutive goals in the first 15 minutes of the game. By the time the dust settled, junior attack Sarah Oliphant had a hat-trick. She led the Hoyas with four goals, while junior midfielders Allison Chambers and Lauryn Bernier tallied three goals apiece.
With just under 14 minutes left in the half, Cornell finally put itself on the scoreboard. Georgetown muffled that rally quickly, taking back the seven-goal lead just 43 seconds later. Scoring bounced back and forth for the rest of the half, but the Hoyas went into the half secure in a 9-3 lead.
The Hoyas came out shooting again in the second half, tallying two goals in the first three minutes, and putting up three more to make the lead 14-3 with 17 minutes left in the game.
“In the second half we knew they would come out hard because they are a tough team and I felt like when we took control in the second half – in the first five minutes – that you could start to see that Cornell was starting to waver a little bit,” Simons said. “There were a couple of key times when defensively we shut them down and then finished on the other end, and that really opened it up for us. It’s never over till the end, but I started to feel better about where things were about 10 minutes into the second half.”
Cornell responded meekly, scoring once before allowing Georgetown to put in two more goals. Sutton scored twice early in the second half for Georgetown, marking her first two collegiate goals.
With just over six minutes left in the half, and the Hoyas maintaining a 16-5 lead, freshman goaltender Margaret Farland made her collegiate debut, replacing junior Sarah Robinson. Robinson finished with six saves while allowing five goals. Farland allowed three goals over the concluding half-dozen minutes.
Simons put in several other freshmen in the final minutes of the game, giving them a taste of playing time but also allowing Cornell to score three times in the last 4:20.
“There were a lot of first-years in at the end, and they were playing great one-on-one defense; they just were having a bit of a lapse in terms of team defense. We had four freshmen defenders and a freshman goalie in there, and everyone was a little nervous and playing individually rather than as a team,” Simons said, adding that Cornell was still fielding its starters. “Every player that was on the field today had a great effort and there were certainly some players who played better than I’d expected them to. It’s always great to have them exceed expectations.”
With one win under their belts and some new experience, the Hoyas head to Blacksburg to take on Virginia Tech on Sunday.
“This game gave us a lot of confidence; we just have to realize that we can’t get complacent. This isn’t the end of the season; this is just the very first game.”
