Coach Bonnie Rosen wanted to schedule a tough opponent to start the season.
When the University of Louisville, No. 16 in the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association coaches poll, agreed to face the Owls at Geasey Field, it meant Rosen had to prepare her team to defend three 40-goal scorers from last season.
Rosen wants her team to strive to score at least 10 goals per game. Temple held the Cardinals, who averaged 12.56 goals per game last season, to eight goals, but fell five goals short of their target, losing 8-5 on Friday at Geasey Field.
“Each player was different,” senior defender Kara Stroup said. “We had specific matchups. We just wanted to contain and just limit the amount of one-v-one room they had, because they’re great one-v-oners, and their feeding to try and limit that as well.”
Louisville scored four consecutive goals in the final 19 minutes to close out the first half to lead 5-1. Louisville senior midfielder Kaylin Morissette, who scored 44 goals last season, tallied two of her three goals in the first half. Cardinals’ junior attacker Hannah Koloski and senior midfielder Cortnee Daley, the top two goal scorers for the Cardinals in 2015, each scored twice.
Louisville also won 6-of-7 draw controls in the first half.
“Anytime after a goal gets scored, you don’t get the ball back,” Rosen said. “That’s what makes our game a little hard. In a lot of sports, there’s alternating possession. In ours, you have to go win that ball back so it’s a tough thing. … Today with our offense being a little stagnant, certainly not effective in getting off a lot of shot opportunities, the draw control put a lot of pressure on us.”
After registering five shots in the first half, Temple increased its pace and ball movement to generate more offensive opportunities. The Owls scored four goals on 10 shots including two by senior attacker Rachel Schwaab.
“I think the movement on the attack allowed the second goal to happen and a great pass from Morgan [Glassford],” Schwaab said. “As soon as we got moving, more things opened up.”
Temple will look for more consistent offense against LaSalle on Feb. 17 at Geasey Field.
“We got to get shooting, and I think a little bit of what happened with our offense today was opening game jitters,” Rosen said. “So we’ll get back on it at practice and really work on executing hard. …I would say Louisville did a nice job of sending doubles and neutralizing some of our one-v-one threats and we just didn’t move the ball fast enough. So we’ll get back to moving the ball a lot quicker.”
Evan Easterling can be reached at evan.easterling@temple.edu
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