The 2012-’13 women’s lacrosse season kicked off this past Saturday at Worchester, Mass., against Holy Cross in a contested 16-13 loss.
The Bulldogs, coming off their highest scoring season since 2008, managed to keep the contest within arms reach until two Crusader goals with less than two minutes left condemned the Elis to defeat.
“We saw a lot of promising things but we also made a lot of careless mistakes,” captain Devon Rhodes ’13 said.
Yale (0-1, 0-0 Ivy) was led by junior attacker Jen DeVito ’14 with four goals and Rhodes with three goals. Despite trailing 8-4 in the first half, the Bulldogs came back to tie the game at 8-8 with under a minute gone in the second half. Yale continued to attack and the game seemed to hang in the balance until two goals put Holy Cross (2-1 ,0-0 Patriot) ahead 13-10 with 10 minutes remaining in the second half. The game featured 15 different Yale players of whom eight registered at least one point.
The Bulldogs scored three goals on free position shots and had two assisted goals in the contest. Yale started three freshmen on the day, and two registered points in the game. Midfielder Kelly Anne Sherlock ’16 scored her first career goal on a free position shot halfway through the first half and midfielder Lauren Wackerle ’16 registered her first assist on a Rhodes goal with four minutes left in the first half. Sophomore midfielder Erin Magnuson ’15 scored two goals on three shots on target.
“While we need to make a more conscious effort to reduce turnovers, we all were impressed with some of the things we were able to accomplish,” Wackerle said.
Despite winning the ground ball and draw control battles 15-13 and 16-15, respectively, against Holy Cross, the Elis were outshot 33-26 and ran into foul trouble with 44 fouls and five yellow cards.
“I thought we did battle back, which is not easy to do when you’re down by a couple of goals early in the game,” goalkeeper Erin McMullan ’14 said. “Another bright spot in the game was the man-down defense. We played a man-down for close to 10 minutes and managed to stay composed on the defensive end.”
The Crusaders, who came off a 17-8 loss to No. 20 Boston College, had four players with four goals each against the Elis. After scoring two unanswered goals in the first five minutes of the game, Holy Cross never looked back on their way to their second victory of the season.
Adding to the hype of the season opener, the matchup featured two sibling matchups with Adrianna Amendola ’13 facing off against her sister, senior Holy Cross defender Christina Amendola, as well as Courteney Rutter ’14 squaring up to her sister Catherine Rutter, a freshman midfielder for the Crusaders.
“This week we need to practice executing the fundamentals in high pressure situations,” Rhodes said.
Yale will look to bounce back in their midweek matchup against Quinnipiac, which will open its season at home against the Elis this coming Wednesday at 3:00 p.m.