April 16, 2007

W. Laxers Secure Win Over Brown

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In the face of an ominous nor’easter looming on the weekend horizon, the women’s lacrosse team defeated Brown, 19-10, on Friday, to show themselves and their fans that they still have a lot of fight left in them. However, the threat of storm did prevent Stanford from flying out to the East Coast for Saturday’s game against the Red, which was cancelled and will not be rescheduled this season.
“We ended against Brown in such a positive manner and we all felt upbeat at the end of that 60 minutes, something we’ve been craving for the past couple months,” said head coach Jenny Graap ’86. “We wanted to carry that energy and enthusiasm into the Stanford game but the weather kind of got in the way.”
After a frustrating and disappointing four-game losing streak, the squad could not have been more satisfied with a solid victory against an Ivy league rival. From the beginning of the first half, the girls took a dominating lead and refused to slow down. Junior Courtney Farrell — who was responsible for eight points in the first period and one in the second — scored three goals and tied her own school record in assists, logging six during the game. With a total of nine points, she was one point shy of tying Cornell’s single-game record, set by Sara Gur in 1994.[img_assist|nid=22901|title=Excuse me, coming through.|desc=Sophomore Deirdre Lafferty (7) — who recorded two ground balls in Saturday’s game at Brown — runs by Princeton defenders in the Red’s 18-9 loss to the Tigers on March 31. G. Scott Russ/Sun Staff|link=node|align=left|width=100|height=73]
“Courtney is a great player with great field vision,” said junior Noelle Dowd of her teammate. “She has the ability to feed the ball in any situation and the ability to make any attacker look good.”
Dowd, the other half of the formidable junior scoring duo, had six points, scoring five goals and registering one assist. Farrell and Dowd were responsible for 15 points in the victory combined.
“They have some kind of timing and are fortunate that they can read each other’s movements on the field. They have good instinct about what the other one will do with the ball,” Graap said. “They are both very talented and any opponent’s defense is going to be tested when there is multiple threats out there, like them, on the Cornell offense.”
Senior Alison McKeown and junior Charlotte Schmidlapp each had hat tricks and sophomore Jennifer Neubauer put one past the Brown goalie with 2:47 left in the second half to net her first career goal. Schmidlapp came up big for the Red, helping to overcome the teams struggle with the draw, registering a career-high of seven draw controls in the win.
“Winning the draw was a team effort. Charlotte came up with the ball a lot, but there was a lot of good movement and boxing out by all the girls on the draw circle,” Graap said. “It’s something we’ve been working on for sure and it’s nice to see that in a game, making a big difference.”
All three Red goalies saw action during the contest, but sophomore Renee Hughes earned the win. Senior Mary Montague relieved Hughes in the second half, allowing five goals but making four big saves. With 3:44 left in the game, freshman Kristen Reese stepped in goal for the first time this season.
The Red, who took a fast and early 5-1 lead, never allowed the Bears to get within six goals the entire game. At halftime, the scoreboard read 14-5 in favor of the Red. Although Brown managed to make a five-goal recovery in the second half, the Red scored five goals of its own to seal the victory.
“The best part of the game was walking off the field feeling proud of my team. We came out and played hard for 60 minutes,” Dowd said. “It was an awesome feeling to get the ‘W’ on Friday, and it gives the team a glimpse of how successful we can be. We will definitely use that as fuel for a successful end of the season.”