Looking back at the season, the AU women’s lacrosse team (8-9, 5-1 PL) has more than enough to celebrate.
Despite their rocky start, the Eagles have a laundry list of accomplishments: A near-perfect season in Patriot League play, the first win over nationally ranked team Johns Hopkins and stellar individual season performances by players such as Kimberly Collins, Emily Maher, Alex Lugovina and a breakout rookie season for goalie Teal Harrison.
“It’s the girls, they want it,” Head Coach Emma Wallace said about the accomplishments durring the regular season. “They work incredibly. It is my hope that [Assistant] Coach [Colleen] McCaffery and I give them the tools they need. But at the end of the day, they are the ones out on the field.”
Looking forward to the PL Tournament that takes place on Apr. 26 and 28 in Annapolis, Md., the Eagles’ chances look promising. Second-seeded AU will face the No. 3 Holy Cross Crusaders (8-9, 3-3 PL).
The Eagles beat the Crusaders back on March 16 by a score of 16-8. Wallace points to this game as the spark that lit the Eagles’ fire and got the team back on track this season.
“It’s almost like a new season starts,” Wallace said. “That’s how we are going to look at it. It’s a fresh season, the postseason. We head into that at 0-0. We have to get past Holy Cross. It’s back to the drawing board, take it one game at a time.”
As for the other PL tournament semifinal matchup, three-time defending PL Tournament champion and No. 1 Navy (16-1, 6-0 PL) will square off against the No. 4 Lafayette Leopards (9-8, 3-3 PL). The Midshipmen beat the Leopards 15-8 in Annapolis back on March 23.
Should AU defeat Holy Cross, the Eagles would likely meet Navy in the PL finals. In their matchup April 21, the Eagles lost a double-overtime 11-10 heartbreaker to the Midshipmen.
A win would have given AU their first PL regular season title since 2008, their first ever 6-0 record in PL play, and homefield advantage throughout this year’s PL tournament.
AU has not reached the PL finals since 2008 when AU was the Co-Regular Season Champions with Colgate. In 2012 AU fell to Navy 14-7 in the opening round of the tournament last year.
Eagle Staff Writer Eric Saltzman contributed to this report.
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