Oregon (4-3, 2-0 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) defeated St. Bonaventure in the Bonnies’ season opener 13-10 Thursday night at Papé Field. The win for Oregon, though, was anything but pristine.
Sophomore Alison Leiner recorded a school-record-tying seven points in the victory, registering a hat trick and four assists. Two went to senior Brooke Dieringer, who, in the first seven minutes of the match, scored three goals to push Oregon out to a 3-0 advantage.
“They weren’t so good on defending cutters so we exploited that in the beginning,” Dieringer said. “We didn’t do too much more of that in the game though.”
Coach Jen Larsen said of Dieringer’s first-half effort: “She was finding the back of the net. It was really perfect lacrosse where the ball-handler was drawing the defender’s attention, someone else cut through to draw even more attention, and Brooke was able to fire off open.”
Amidst a four-goal Bonnies run, Kimberly Ross’ free position goal gave St. Bonaventure its only lead in the match, pushing the score to 4-3 with 11:46 remaining in the first. The Ducks then rattled off the last six scores of the half. Oregon outshot St. Bonaventure 20-9 and found six more shots on goal by halftime, as Leiner’s two goals and four assists and sophomore Ilsa van den Berg’s three assists in the first 30 minutes ascended the Ducks to a 9-4 lead.
“I haven’t got many looks this year,” Leiner said. “The coaches have been really looking for me to get my flow back, drive to the goal, and I just looked to do that, and it was working out.”
St. Bonaventure, which finished 14-3 last year, fought back, turning on a four-goal scoring run in the second half to cut Oregon’s lead from 11-5 just five minutes into the second to 11-9 with 6:14 remaining.
“We knew they were gonna play never-let-die lacrosse,” Larsen said. “So it was a little upsetting that we sat back on our laurels a little bit, but we were able to pick back up and finish on a higher note.”
van den Berg nailed a free position goal off an assist from junior Theresa Waldron, who also had a goal, with 4:29 to go. Ross scored a goal with 4:09, but the Bonnies would not score again. Sophomore Casey Rector netted the match’s final goal off Waldron’s second assist of the night to secure Oregon’s second non-conference win of the season. Junior Kate Fleming added two goals in the match and Waldron also had a goal. Ultimately, Dieringer said things could have gone better.
“We are pretty lucky we pulled that out,” Dieringer said. “We had some highs and lows.”
In her first start in for the injured Anna Poponyak, freshman goalkeeper Sam Debow registered five saves while allowing 10 goals.
The Ducks outshot the Bonnies 34-19 in the game. Larsen said that her team as a whole needs to work on their transition, and finishing things out.
“The easy stuff was really pretty but the fancy stuff didn’t go the right way,” Larsen said.
The match against St. Bonaventure was one of four teams from the East Coast that Oregon is slatted to play. Oregon next battles the Vermont Catamounts Monday at 7 p.m. on Pape Field. St. Bonaventure will play the Catamounts on Saturday at 1 p.m.
“It was important for us to come and rebound from an 0-2 weekend,” Larsen said. “It propels us in the right direction for the home stretch.”