Bouncing back from its first two losses of the season last week, the women’s lacrosse team defeated Bryant University 15-7 Monday to win the Ocean State Cup.
Bruno has taken the Cup in each of the five years it has been awarded.
“We haven’t lost yet,” said Janie Gion ’15, who scored a career-high five goals, the most of any player in Monday’s game. “We pride ourselves on being the best team in Rhode Island.”
The memory of recent narrow losses may have spurred the Bears to action on the field.
“We had just lost to Dartmouth by one and the game before that to Denver by one. We were definitely very fired up,” Gion said.
Despite the energy, Bruno (8-2, 2-1 Ivy) struggled in the early minutes against the Bulldogs (6-3). After Gion fired Brown’s first goal a minute into the game, Bryant jumped out to a 4-1 lead with four consecutive goals. Lisa Vendel scored three of the four and accounted for over half of the Bulldogs’ offensive total on the day.
The Bears took a timeout five minutes into play, which helped swing the momentum toward their side, Gion said.
Gion responded with her second goal, jumpstarting Bruno’s response to Bryant’s early lead.
Richael Walsh ’16 followed Gion with a goal of her own to narrow the score to 4-3, and co-captain Bre Hudgins ’14 scored twice to give the Bears the lead. After Bryant scored to tie the game at five, Kerianne Hunt ’17 and co-captain Grace Healy ’14 scored one a piece. Piling on, Gion notched an impressive three more goals to push her total to five by the end the half. Bruno would not relinquish the lead for the rest of the game.
Entering halftime, the Bears led 10-6 and had outshot the Bulldogs by eight. They entered the second stanza with a rock-solid defense that allowed only one more Bryant goal. Though Bruno eased into its offensive domination during the first half, the Bears’ talented defense starred in the second.
“We prepared really well,” Gion said. “All of our defenders scouted well, and they each shut (their opponent) down really well.”
The first 12 minutes of the second period were scoreless, as neither defense budged. Hudgins eventually opened the door for the Bears, taking advantage of a defensive breakdown to fire her third goal of the game into an empty net. Hudgins leads the team and the Ivy League with 30 goals on the season. Healy scored her second goal of the game two minutes later off an assist from Danielle Mastro ’14, one of Mastro’s whopping five total assists on the day.
The Bears continued to hold off the Bulldog offense as Hunt scored her second goal and Mastro her first late in the contest. With the Bears leading 14-6, Bryant netted its only goal of the half with five minutes left. Mollie Lane ’17 notched her first collegiate goal and the last goal of the game with one second remaining, topping off Brown’s 15-7 win over Bryant and its unbroken five-year ownership of the Ocean State Cup. The team often refers to its focus on the “little things” in lacrosse as a main reason for its success.
Bruno remains tied for second place in the Ivy League, though its overall win percentage is the highest in the conference. Kelly Roddy ’15 continues to lead Ancient Eight goalies with a commanding 50 percent save percentage. As Mastro racks up her assists and goals, she joins her teammates in leading the conference, outperforming all of her peers in total points.
The Bears will travel to Cambridge Saturday to take on Ivy rival Harvard (4-4, 2-1 Ivy). The game will be broadcast on ESPN3 as both teams — currently tied for second in the Ivy League — will try to climb the conference ladder.
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