March 5, 2004

Lady Laxers Fighting Irish

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After dropping its opener to No. 5 Georgetown last weekend, the women’s lacrosse team heads out on the road again, this time to South Bend, Ind. to take on No. 12 Notre Dame (2-0) for a noon contest on Sunday. The Red (0-1) will try to maintain its perfect record against the Irish, having defeated Notre Dame the previous two seasons. Following last weekend’s loss, Cornell fell to No. 19 in the IWLCA poll. The team had previously after being ranked No. 12 in the.

“I think we approach the Notre Dame game with all the experience and lessons that we learned in our opener against Georgetown. We see Notre Dame as a formidable opponent,” said head coach Jenny Graap ’86. “We’re a young team, we’re a new team, and I think our approach is to solidify some of the fundamentals that we saw were lacking against the Hoyas.”

Last Saturday, Georgetown jumped out to a 7-0 lead that the Red was unable to overcome. There were several bright spots in the 16-8 loss, among them freshmen Lindsey Moore. Playing in her first collegiate game, Moore scored two goals coming off the bench. Four other freshmen saw playing time in the opener, and freshman Margaux Viola was the only freshman in the starting lineup.

Sophomore Allison Schindler continued right where she left off last season, picking up two assists to give her 30 on her career. She is now tied with Graap for 10th on the all-time assist list.

While giving up the most goals in two seasons, the defense is still very young and is coming together as the players develop into a cohesive unit.

“We really need to tighten up that defensive unit. We’ve worked hard so far in practice and will continue to work hard getting our personnel down and doing a better job with the communication among the defensive unit,” Graap commented.

Notre Dame comes into this weekend having swept Stanford and Cal on its west coast road trip. Two members of the Irish were recognized for their play last week. Goalie Carol Dixon was named Big East co-defensive player of the week, and midfielder Abby Owen was named Inside Lacrosse Magazine Player of the Week.

Owen scored seven goals last weekend, including two game winners. Meredith Simon also recorded seven goals on the road trip, and is the team’s leading scorer with nine points.

“I think Notre Dame has several scoring threats that are emerging early. They have some height on our attacking end that we’ll have to make some adjustments to handle,” said Graap. “I think we’ll go into it as the faster team, but really what I want to prove is that we’re the scrappier team and we’re the team that wants it more because I do think it could be a fairly-evenly matched talent-for-talent kind of game, in which case it comes down to heart and desire.”

The narrow field of Notre Dame’s Loftus Center will also be a factor in the game.

“The fact that we’re the faster team, if it were a bigger field, the speed would come into play even more, but the fact that it’s a smaller venue, it may work towards Notre Dame’s advantage in that our speed may not be as important in the game.”

Archived article by Jonathan Auerbach