The women’s lacrosse teams of
Pomona-Pitzer and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps faced off on Wednesday, Feb. 12 in the Sixth Street rivalry game at Pomona College’s Southern Athletic Complex. The Sagehens
defeated CMS 11-9, holding off a late second-half comeback by the Athenas.
Entering the game, each team had only played one game so far this
season.
In
the beginning of the first half, it looked as though the Sagehens were going to
pull away quickly as they jumped out to a 4-0 lead. Rebecca Long PO ’17 kicked off the run with a goal three minutes into the game. Jana London PZ ’14
followed by scoring two straight goals for the Sagehens, and Olivia Cornfield
PZ ’17 added one more on a free position goal. Already down by four goals, CMS
stopped the P-P run with a goal from Anthea Weixel CM ’14, which made the score
4-1.
However,
the Sagehens’ offense continued their high-powered attack. Aubrey Douglass
PZ ’16 scored the Sagehens’ fifth goal of the match, followed by additional goals from both Long and London that put P-P up by a score of 7-1 with about 10
minutes remaining in the first half.
Just when it looked like the Sagehens had
pulled away for good, the Athenas bounced back thanks to three consecutive
goals by Christina Coffin CM ’16. The Athenas came within three goals, but
Long scored her third goal of the night to put the Sagehens up 8-4 going into
halftime.
The
beginning of the second half started with solid defense by both teams. The game
was scoreless for the first eight minutes of the half until Izzy Laterzo CM ’16 scored a goal, making the score 8-5. The Sagehens and Athenas then traded
goals as London and Coffin each scored their fourth goals of the match. The
teams traded goals once again as P-P’s Hannah Christenson PO ’17 and the
Athenas’ Katharine Connaughton CM ’16 each scored, making the score 10-7.
With four minutes left in the match,
Christina Sutherland CM ’15 scored a goal that brought the Athenas within two,
but Emlyn Foxen PO ’16 scored just 20 seconds later to put P-P back up 11-8. In
the final 30 seconds, Joanna Heywood CM ’17 scored a desperation goal, but it
was too little, too late, as the Athenas could not recover from the early
Sagehen lead. The clock ran out and the Sagehens claimed the 11-9 victory.
P-P’s head women’s lacrosse coach Sarah Queener said this about the victory over CMS, “It’s always great to get a win, especially over our cross-campus rival.”
Coffin and London led the way for
each team, both scoring four goals in the game. Long’s three goals gave her a second-straight hat trick across her first two collegiate matches. Kate
Anello CM ’16 racked up six saves, and Gaby Fukumura PO ’17 also tallied six
saves during the night.
When asked about her team’s improvement over the first two games, Queener said, “We’re happy with our team’s ability to start strong and will focus on keeping our momentum going throughout the entire 60 minutes of play.”
After
the win, P-P is now 2-0 for the season and 2-0 in SCIAC play, having beaten Whittier College by a score of 14-4. With the loss, CMS is now 0-2, with their loss to SCIAC opponent University of Redlands by a score of
17-9.
The
Sagehens will have their next game on Saturday, Feb. 15 at noon as they travel to face
league opponent Occidental College. CMS also has their
next game on Saturday at 11 a.m. against Whittier.
“Occidental is a great team and has opened their season very strong with two impressive victories over both Chapman and Redlands,” Queener said. “In order to get a win versus Oxy, we will need to put together a complete team effort for two full halves. Also, it’d be helpful if we could win every ground ball and draw, and score on every possession.”