In the first game of their collegiate careers, the freshmen rose to the occasion as the women’s lacrosse team recorded an 18-5 win against Niagara at Geasey Field on Saturday.
In what was a lopsided contest, the freshmen were not afraid to put their high-speed offense on display as they contributed five goals to the team’s total.
Freshman Avery Longstaff was the first of the four freshmen to get on the board when she scored a goal with more than 16 minutes remaining in the first period, which helped to balloon the lead to a score of 10-1.
Impressed with her team’s performance, Longstaff said, “We were playing well and playing as a team, it was really fun.”
It was the resiliency of freshman Nicole Tiernan, who scored her first career goal that helped to stave off Niagara’s 3-2 run mid way during the 1st period.
“I had a lot of fun,” Tiernan said. “Everything we worked for from September all the way through now is starting. Everything is happening. We have great chemistry. It is really nice.”
Freshman Rachel Schwaab also got involved in the scoring and recorded her first career goal.
Not to bested by her teammates, freshman Summer Jaros scored 2 goals during the 2nd period.
“Our freshmen are a huge part of our team, in every which way; numbers-wise, personality-wise, skill-wise, athletic-wise,” coach Bonnie Rosen said. “They are really the perfect complement to the returners that are all back. It is really neat to have so many freshmen who are all ready to actually make an impact now. They are just going to get better and better and comfortable. As they get better, we are going to get better.”
While the freshmen said they were happy with the margin of victory, they are not satisfied.
“We have the out-of-conference schedule coming up and we are going to really use that to get our game to where it needs to be for the Atlantic 10 Conference,” Longstaff said. “The goal is the A-10 championship of course. But we are going to try to take every game as it comes. Just to get up for every single game.”
The freshmen seemed to have adjusted well to the differences between the way lacrosse is played in high school and college.
“I think the biggest different between high school and college is that the game is a lot faster, everything is harder, all the girls are strong,” Longstaff said. “It is everything in high school taken up to the next level.”
However, this tight knit group has each other to lean on.
“There are 13 freshmen, so it is really nice that if you are confused, as a freshman, and you don’t feel like going to an upperclassman, there are 13 people right next to you, built-in best friends that you can just go to and ask questions,” Tiernan said.
The freshmen will get another opportunity to display their skills on Wednesday against Rutgers.
-Danielle Nelson
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