Ladies lacrosse finishes season with a split

The Kenyon Ladies lacrosse team wrapped up both its conference and regular seasons this past week, facing two tough opponents in Wittenberg University and Notre Dame College. After earning a hard-fought victory against conference foe Wittenberg University with a final score of 18-9, the Ladies came up short against one of their toughest opponents of the year, Notre Dame College, with a tally of 13-8. The Ladies finished the regular season with a record of 11-4 and a mark of 4-2 in the North Coast Athletic Conference.

On Wednesday, April 22, the Ladies traveled to Springfield, Ohio, in a showdown for second place in the conference. The Tigers of Wittenberg came out hungry, keeping up with the potent Kenyon offense in the first half. While the Ladies pushed their lead to as many as three goals in the opening frame, Wittenberg fought back, tying the game late in the half. A goal by midfielder Liz Hancock '10 with 38 seconds left to play in the first half gave the Ladies a slim halftime advantage of 8-7. Kenyon came into the game on a three-game winning streak in which they had outshot their opponents by a 70-29 margin, outscoring their past three victims by a tally of 36-9; Wittenberg, however, only trailed by one at halftime, thanks in part to holding the Ladies to only 14 shots, while the Tigers tossed 18 attempts at goalie Chase Kreuter '10 in the first half.

The Ladies emerged out of the intermission in tighter form against the Tigers than prior to halftime. Within the first four minutes of the half, the Tigers found themselves down by a score of 11-7, thanks to two goals by midfielder Meghan Henshall '12 and one by attacker Emma Stendig '09. The Ladies ran away with the victory, scoring six unanswered goals to close out the game in the final ten minutes. The Kenyon defense also stepped up in the second half, led by Kreuter, who snagged 11 saves in the second half as she earned the win.

Leading the Ladies was top goal scorer and attacker Jackie Shirreffs '11, who notched four goals on the night, along with Hancock. Henshall scored three goals in the effort. Attacker Margaret Sherwood '12 and midfielder Alicia Florin '11 each had two assists, while Sherwood also scored two goals. Midfielder Jenny Fitzgerald '11 and Stendig each contributed two goals for Kenyon.

The Ladies came into Saturday afternoon's match against Notre Dame of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics riding a four-game winning streak; the Falcons, however, turned the tables on the Ladies as Notre Dame College jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead to open the game and went into halftime with the score 9-1, thanks, in part, to outshooting the Ladies by an astounding 25-7 margin. The eight-goal halftime deficit jolted Kenyon awake, as Shirreffs tossed in two quick goals for the Ladies to cut the Falcons' lead to six. Shirreffs added her third and final goal of the afternoon, along with goals by Sherwood and attacker Amelia Lavin '11, to bring the score to 10-6 with more than 12 minutes remaining in the game. The Falcons quickly rallied, scoring two goals in a span of 16 seconds less than a minute after the Ladies had cut the deficit to four goals. After this surge, the Ladies would not get any closer on the afternoon, conceding with a final score of 13-8.

Shirreffs led the team again with three goals scored. Florin added two goals along with one from Fitzgerald. Kreuter had 16 saves that afternoon.

With the regular season complete, the Ladies will travel to the College of Wooster for the NCAC tournament on Friday as the number-two seed. They will face Wittenberg again at 5:00 p.m. in the first round of the conference tournament.