The women’s lacrosse team traveled the 100 miles to Worcester, Mass., to test their skills against not only Holy Cross, but the torrential weather as well. But neither the Crusaders nor the dreary conditions were able to put an end to the Bulldogs’ winning streak, now extended to five games.
No. 15 Yale (8-3, 2-1 Ivy) defeated Holy Cross (7-3, 2-0 Patriot), 13-6, in a match that ended early due to inclement weather. The Bulldogs went into the matchup having won their last four matches in a row, including emphatic defeats of Harvard and BU. But the Crusaders also ran off a five-game winning streak earlier this season, and with the rain pouring down, nothing was guaranteed for the Bulldogs.
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“We prepared like we would any other team,” Lindsay Levin ’07 said. “This was definitely the worst weather conditions I have ever seen. But both teams were going through the same conditions, and we can’t use that as an excuse.”
The Elis held a perfect 10-0 all-time record against Holy Cross going into this game and extended their unblemished record with the successful encounter. Jenn Warden ’09 said the team went in with high hopes for the result to go in their favor.
“[The Crusaders] are a good team, but we knew we could take them,” she said. “It definitely bodes well for the NCAA game as well.”
The weather conditions progressively worsened and the field slowly filled with snow and sleet, limiting the mobility for both teams. The referee called the game due to ‘dangerous turf conditions’ with a little under 10 minutes of play left. The Elis were lucky that the game got as far as it did, as the squad didn’t play at the top of its game until the second half.
“It took us time to adapt to the weather,” Lauren Taylor ’08 said. “They started off by going up by a few goals. But we started to collect ourselves and dominated the second half. It was definitely an accomplishment. Given the circumstances, we played pretty well.”
The two teams were pretty evenly matched in the first half, with the halftime score 7-5. The Bulldogs completely neutralized their opponent after halftime, scoring six goals and letting through only one. Yesterday’s game brought back memories of last week’s affair with Harvard, when Yale scored 10 of their 17 goals in the second half with an amazing seven-goal, seven-minute run.
Taylor, who won the Ivy Offensive Player of the Week award for the third time this season, said she was still concerned about her team’s inability to perform from the first whistle.
“It seems to be a trend that we’re a second-half team,” she said. “We can’t keep doing this against these better teams in some of the games we have ahead, we need to play a full 60-minute game. We can’t just chip away at a three or four goal lead in the second half. It’s comforting to know we can do that, but we can’t just sit back and let that happen.”
Yesterday’s rendezvous with the Crusaders was the Bulldogs’ last non-Ivy matchup of the season, and the team will face Princeton on Saturday at Johnson Field.