The Oregon women’s lacrosse team suffered its first loss of the year in their season opener against the 18th-ranked Stanford Cardinal on Saturday afternoon at Papé Field. The Ducks struggled defensively throughout most of the game, allowing eight goals in the first half and nine more in the second.
While Stanford was busy scoring at will, the Ducks could not find a rhythm on the offensive end, either, which resulted in a lopsided 17-5 Cardinal victory.
“This was a team that I really expected to come out and play the full 60 minutes, but once a few things didn’t go our way we just weren’t able to get the momentum back,” said fifth-year head coach Jen Larsen.
Sophomore midfielder Alex Breiner put Oregon on the board early with an unassisted goal over the middle, just three minutes into the game. But Stanford’s Dana Lindsay answered back a minute later with her first of four goals on the day. She finished with two assists to lead all scorers with six total points.
“We came out on fire,” Larsen stated. “I thought Stanford did a really good job keeping us in check after that.”
Redshirt senior goalie Anna Poponyak came up with several strong stops over the next few minutes, while junior Celeste Mayer and true freshman Jessica Drummond each notched a goal for the Ducks, who jumped out to a 3-1 lead with just more than 20 minutes left in the half.
“It felt really cool,” Drummond said of scoring her first collegiate career goal. “I was surprised since I play mostly defense.”
From then on it was all the Cardinal. They finished the first half scoring seven straight unanswered goals to go into the break up 8-3, and they never looked back.
Stanford took control of the opening draw to begin the second half, and then it took only 26 seconds before Lauren Schmidt scored her second goal of the day for the Cardinal. She finished with three goals overall and was one of six Stanford players to score multiple times.
Stanford knocked in two more goals within the next five minutes, before Larsen pulled Poponyak and replaced her with redshirt sophomore Hannah Jones. Jones was able to hold off the Stanford attack temporarily, but could not stop the bleeding altogether. Stanford spent most of the game on the offensive end, tallying up 26 shots on goal compared to Oregon’s 12.
“We’ve got to come out on top of the draw the way that they did,” Larsen said. “That’s key.”
During the next 14 minutes the Cardinals tacked on another five goals to extend their lead to 16-4, which brought on the Ducks’ third goalkeeper of the game, junior Sam Debow. She was between the pipes for less than a minute when Maggie Sachs scored Stanford’s 17th and final goal.
While the Ducks struggled to do many of the little things on both sides of the ball, the overall team effort looked promising for a squad that features several young players, many of whom are freshmen and will take some time adjusting to the pace of the collegiate game.
“The tempo … it’s so much faster than any high school game,” Drummond reiterated.
“Each week we’re just going to have to go back to the drawing board and get back on track,” Larsen concluded.
Senior Ilsa van den Berg was held scoreless for the first time since the 2007 season. She had accumulated at least one point in 21 straight games before being held scoreless on Saturday.
The Ducks have a week to regroup before they host UC Davis next Saturday at 1 p.m.
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Stanford hands Ducks first loss in style
Daily Emerald
February 8, 2009
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