Women's lacrosse struggles in second game, falls to sixth-ranked Loyola

Coming off a stomping of Rutgers last Wednesday, the women's lacrosse team struggled against No. 6 Loyola yesterday at 1952 Stadium. A combination of a lack of focus and ag-gressive Grey-hound play forced the Tigers out of their game plan, which resulted in a 13-9 loss.

"We lost our focus and we weren't mentally tough," senior midfielder Julie Shaner said. "[Loyola] came out a lot harder, and we let them take it to us, rather than us take it to them."

While the Tigers scored first early in the first half, Loyola powered into a lead behind four consecutive goals from Greyhound attack Stacey Morlang. The Tigers would never recover.

With the score at 5-2 in the first half, Loyola beat freshman goalkeeper Meghan McInnes for two more goals. It looked as though that would end things for the Tigers, but they continued to fight back. Freshman midfielder Theresa Sherry whipped one into the goal, and then junior midfield Mimi Hammerberg drove down the center to put another score past Loyola goalkeeper Tricia Dab-rowski.

But to end the half, after a Princeton penalty on freshman midfield Mary Beth Hogan, the Greyhounds' Suzanne Eyler put the ball into the cage on a penalty chance, making the score 8-4.

The second half would prove even more frustrating for the Tigers. Each time Princeton would put one in, the Greyhounds would answer with a goal of their own. On a Loyola penalty, tri-captain Shaner spun in front of the goal and delivered a one-bounce shot which got past Dabrowski.

On the other end, though, Greyhounds' attack Megan San-tacroce executed a similar move to score on McInnes. The rest of the game was played out in the same fashion, the teams matching each other goal for goal, with Princeton never able to breakdown Loyola's four-goal lead. Tiger goals were scored by junior attack Lauren Simone, junior attack Nina Carbone, and Shaner. The Greyhounds got the last goal on a pass from behind the net to Jen Testrake who put it in, ending Princeton's reign at the No. 2 ranked spot.

"We talked about that," head coach Chris Sailer said. "We're not number two, we're 0-0 at the start of the year like everyone else. We just have to get after it and not feel like we have something to lose but rather feel like we have something to go for. The attitude was like not wanting to lose it."

The Tigers never gave up, though. Even down by four goals, Princeton continued to fight, trying to make a comeback, but Loyola was fighting back just as hard, trying to keep the Tigers down. The Greyhounds' patience and long-distance precision passing rendered the transition defense nearly ineffective.

"So many things went wrong," Sailer said. "I just don't think we were mentally sharp and maintained our concentration for the whole game. We seemed to be a step behind in our thought process and our skills weren't sharp today."

The Tigers were definitely out of their game, hacking away at the Greyhounds and making uncharacteristic mistakes. They committed 19 fouls while the Greyhounds committed only eight. Loyola was able to capitalize on Princeton's mistakes, keeping the ball in their offensive end while stalling in their defensive end to run out the clock. The Greyhounds commited five more turnovers than the Tigers, but Loyala's big advantage came in goal. While Princeton led Loyola 23-19 in shots, the Tigers only had three saves to the Greyhounds' eight.

"Missy [Holmes], our assistant, made the point that we are really letting our play determine our attitude instead of our attitude determining our play," coach Sailer said. "You definitely saw that today. Waiting for some big plays to get us pumped up rather than just having that confidence and knowing that you're good and playing hard the whole time."