The women’s lacrosse team fell short in their first home game of the season on March 3 against Salisbury University, with a final score of 7-16, but are feeling excited to get back out and play.
Senior and co-captain of the team, Ashley Lechliter, was looking forward to seeing how the team would play and scored her first goal before the second half with an assist from junior Julianna Corson.
“We haven’t even been able to scrimmage the whole field against each other, so that was basically our first real game competing against each other and the other team, so it was all around just a bunch of emotions,” Lechliter said.
For Head Coach Lindsay Delaney, nothing compared to watching the team compete for the first time in almost a year.
“It felt normal,” Delaney said. “For the first time in a year, there was a big sigh of relief and a huge sense of normalcy. I thought everyone from the administration to those who were working the game; it was pretty flawless in terms of that way.”
“No one had to think about COVID for a while, so that was nice, other than wearing masks and staying socially distant and all of the protocols we have to put in place to make sure we have the game,” Delaney said.
Lechliter and her teammates used social media during the pandemic to help stay focused on lacrosse.
“We actually have an Instagram that we post workouts on so we’re still staying with each other and seeing each other working out, so it was like we kind of didn’t stop playing with each other but in a way we did,” Lechliter said.
As the season continues, Lechliter advises her teammates to not be afraid when it comes to playing and give everything you have on the field.
“Never give up and play for each other,” Lecliter said. “You never really know when things are going to get taken away.”
“Go out there and leave it all on the field and not be nervous since we are a pretty young team,” Lechliter said. “If you think about it, we’re [the seniors] supposed to be juniors and sophomores are still supposed to be freshmen.”
“They didn’t really have a season last year, so we’re a young team, and that’s just something they need to basically learn, not to be scared and play scared and just leave it out on the field,” Lechliter said.
With the potential for games to be canceled in the future, Delaney is hoping the team will find a way to stay focused.
“I think you saw a lot of nerves and not a calmness about us when we played, so I’m hoping we can play calm through chaos,” Delaney said. “I think offensively you didn’t see us control the ball that well and defensively you didn’t see us get the ball out of the defensive end well.”
“We have to clean up our turnovers first,” Delaney said. “We can’t do anything if we don’t have the ball.”
The team will not be playing a few matches this season due to multiple factors but Delaney knows her team will not suffer.
“I think the overall feeling is [that] it’s a pause, it’s just a little bump, and we’ll be fine,” Delaney said. “We know what it feels like to stop everything, so this isn’t new to us.”
With limited opportunities to practice before the first match, the team now knows what to work on moving forward.
“It exposed the kind of stuff that we do need to work on that we didn’t see when we were just practicing,” Lechliter said. “It was definitely a learning experience coming out without playing for over a year.”
“It was also nerves, so we kind of got all of those nerves out of our system the first game,” Lechliter said. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to bounce back and not have those nerves but you always kind of do.”
The team lost their second game of the season against Washington College (Maryland) on Wednesday night and are looking to pick up their 0-2 record on Saturday against Immaculata University at home.
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