The women’s lacrosse team remains winless in the Ivy League after dropping a spring break contest to Cornell by a score of 14-6 but salvaged the week with a win over Colgate Tuesday.
Cornell (7-2, 3-0 Ivy) had reason to be confident heading into its game against the Bears (5-3, 0-3). Bruno has not defeated the Big Red in 16 years.
An early deficit set the pace for the rest of the game. The Bears were unable to score any consecutive goals until the last three minutes of play.
Cornell set the tone early with two goals in the first three minutes of play, grabbing a lead that it would not relinquish. Lauren Toy ’16 fed Yuna Hur ’18 to put the Bears on the board. But Hur’s goal could not dent Cornell’s lead for long, as the Big Red squad responded with a string of four straight goals to put it up 6-1.
“We kind of dug ourselves into a hole,” said Janie Gion ’15.
Attempts to regroup during the break fell flat as the Big Red kicked off the second period by mounting a scoring campaign that lasted over 15 minutes. It resulted in four goals, extending Cornell’s lead to a virtually insurmountable 10.
Dianne Vitkus ’16 scored with 13:33 to play to scratch away at the deficit, but the Big Red responded quickly to reestablish its lead. Trailing by 10 with 10 minutes left to play, Bruno injected some energy into its game and reasserted itself with two goals — its only consecutive goals of the game. Abby Bunting ’15 racked up a team-leading two goals, but they came too late.
Bruno’s decisive loss solidifies the well-known superiority of Cornell’s explosive offense. Kelly Roddy ’15 had a career-high 14 saves, but Cornell’s overwhelming 33 shots ultimately got the best of the Bears. By comparison, the Bears managed 19 shots, six of which found the back of the net. Bruno’s dismal clear rate of 50 percent also factored into the disappointing results.
“Cornell’s probably one of the best teams we’re going to play,” Gion said.
But she added that she thought the team played well and that the lopsided score did not indicate a lack of effort.
“It was a lot closer game than the score showed,” she said, saying that the team did a good job of generating offensive opportunities but “our shots weren’t really falling.”
Upon traveling to Colgate (5-4, 3-1 Patriot), the Bears were hungry to reverse Saturday’s results. This time, Bruno found success and played a high-scoring game that culminated in an 11-5 win.
The game started with dangerous similarity to Saturday’s contest. The Raiders took an early two-goal lead, controlling the ball near the Brown net. But the Bears responded quickly and forcefully. Eight unanswered goals later, Bruno had taken a comfortable 8-2 lead at halftime.
Toy had jumpstarted the scoring spree off of a free position shot. Gion followed with two consecutive goals and scored the last one before the buzzer to round out a first-half hat trick . Sarah Nesi ’16 and Bunting also netted one apiece.
The same players continued to pop up throughout the second half, peppering the Colgate net with shots and notching a total of five more goals. Both Gion and Toy ultimately contributed four goals to Bruno’s total, as Toy recorded a hat trick within the second half alone. With the victory, the Bears extended their perfect start against non-conference opponents.
After the blowout win, Gion felt encouraged by what she saw from her teammates.
“I think we’re definitely on the right track now,” she said.
Bruno will hope to maintain its winning momentum Tuesday when it faces another non-conference rival in San Diego State (7-3, 4-0 Mountain West). The Bears will continue Ivy play Saturday with a contest against Harvard (3-4, 1-1).
