The women’s lacrosse team capped off its offseason play with a game against five-time defending national champion Northwestern on Sunday. The game took place on neutral territory at Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn, N.Y., in the first-ever Rusty Red Fall Lax Classic.

The Fall Lax Classic was set up by the Rusty Red Foundation, which is an organization set up by former Cornell men’s lacrosse tri-captain Joe Lizzio (’86 – ’88) with the purpose of benefitting inner city boys and girls. This event specifically was arranged to allow underprivileged girls to see lacrosse played at the highest division level, according to a notice sent out by event coordinator Hilary Bowen. It’s all for the kids: Senior co-captain and middle/defender Tissy O’Connor (left) and the Red traveled to Brooklyn for a pre-season charity match and youth clinic.

As planned, Sunday afternoon first witnessed a scrimmage between the Wildcats and the Red, followed by a clinic for interaction with girls from the audience. The clinic included a “chalk talk” by the coaches and interaction with the players such as basic instruction and autograph signing.

In terms of the actual scrimmage, the Red was happy to have a chance to play again before the spring season starts up.

“It was definitely a learning experience since Northwestern is a perennial power of the Division-I level,” said head coach Jenny Graap. “They’re very talented and very fast-paced, and it was very beneficial to be working against this top competition. Since it was the last game in the fall, we have a lot of time to take what we’ve learned from them and to work on different aspects of our game to prepare for the spring season.”

“We saw that, as a whole, there’s definitely a lot of room for improvement,” said senior co-captain Tissy O’Connor, agreeing with an assessment made by Graap that the team is a “work in progress.”

Graap noted that the scrimmage still was a good culmination to the 2009 season and the lineup of early fall events that the Red participated in, such as the Big Red Bonanza that took place on Oct. 3.

“Since it was against Northwestern, it was great to have it later rather than earlier since it showcased a lot of elements that became prominent through our workouts in the fall,” O’Connor said.

Preparation for the scrimmage was found in their workouts that had taken place since the start of this school year. With the team being largely comprised of freshmen and sophomores — 22 of the 33 players on the roster are underclassmen — the Red has been working hard on many fundamental skills and taking shifts. Graap revealed that the main emphasis of the workouts had been conditioning and stick work.

O’Connor saw that during the game, the Red accomplished its goal — elevate the field.

“Since the fall season was so short we didn’t have much time to work on certain aspects and focus on either just offense or just defense,” O’Connor said. “Going forward, something we need to do is work on a lot of team defense. We need to keep up communication all over the field but specifically in the defensive area.”

The scrimmage allowed for a lot of the women on the roster to get playing time, and their abilities were illuminated. Graap was pleased with the performance of the seniors, whose leadership abilities became prominent, but also found excitement with some younger players. Courtney Gallagher, goalkeeper during the game, was only a freshman but she did very well.

“Northwestern’s offense generated a lot of shots but she did a great job at being composed and handling the goal,” Graap said.

O’Connor noted that the sophomores who received more playing time exhibited a lot of competence after one year of playing.

“I see them as big contributors in the spring. They have experience with the ball and seeing them grow, you can tell that they’re only going to get better,” O’Connor said.

While the scrimmage was definitely a great learning experience for the team, the clinic was just as important.

“It was great!” O’Connor said. “It was so much fun to be able to interact with the Northwestern players in more of an informal, noncompetitive setting. Watching the girls we were instructing, a lot of us could remember when we were at that age picking up our first lacrosse stick. We remembered not really knowing what to do with it and how we didn’t know that playing at the D-I level was even a possibility.”

“The whole Sunday experience — playing Northwestern and then the clinic — it was just outstanding,” Graap said. “It was really rewarding for the team and allowed for the players to give back to the sport.”