When the lacrosse team entered its game against No. 18 Rutgers Friday, the Owls wanted to stop the bleeding of their young season. The Owls, who as recently as last season were nationally ranked, had started the season slowly – especially on offense.
They brought a 2-5 record into their meeting with Rutgers, and looked to snap their two-game losing streak. But the bleeding continued. The Scarlet Knights scored the first five goals of the game and the Owls failed to make a serious push to even the score, eventually falling, 14-10, at Geasey Field.
Rutgers sophomore Nina Frankoski opened the scoring at the 22:08 mark with a crafty goal just over the left shoulder of Temple goalie Bridget McMullan.
Frankoski scored three of the Knights’ first five goals, and added four more for a game-high seven goals.Allison Frengs finally got Temple (2-6) on the board with 13:33 left in the first half. The senior captain slashed to the middle of the field, was briefly tripped up, but regained her balance long enough to net her first of a team-high four goals.
Moments later, Frengs had another goal attempt to bring the Owls within three, but a terrific save by Rutgers goalie Sandra Abel stopped her cold. Shortly after Abel’s save, Casey Cech beat the goalie, as Abel came away on top of a mad scramble in front of the goal to net another Temple goal. The rest of the first half was played at a pace that better suited Temple, as Rutgers’
speed seemed to throw the Owls off of their game early.
As the Owls regained control of the tempo, they brought themselves back into the game.
With 9:15 left in the first half, Frengs added her second goal of the game to bring Temple within two, at 5-3. The momentum however, swayed back to Rutgers, as Frankoski added two straight goals to pad Rutgers’ lead to 7-3 and boost her first-half goal total to five. Cech added the second of her three goals a few minutes before halftime and the 7-4 scored held until the break.
The second half was a similar story for Temple. The Owls gave up three unanswered goals in the first nine minutes to start the period.
Temple’s Whitney Richards added a goal at the 18:25 mark to answer the Knights (8-2) and Nicole Caniglia notched another a few minutes later to pull Temple’s deficit to 10-6. But Rutgers was able to withhold the Owls’ attack and build its lead back to five with just fewer than five minutes left.
Temple made a frantic comeback attempt
in the final minutes, but it was a case of too little too late. Frengs scored two goals and Cech knocked in another in the span of about a minute, pulling the Owls within 13-10 with 1:36 left. A final goal by Rutgers’ Jamie Farewell ended any last-minute comeback.
Temple will try to bounce back Friday when it hosts Massachusetts in a 3 p.m. tilt at Geasey Field.
Kenny Walter can be reached at kenneth.walter@temple.edu.
Be the first to comment