The Ithaca College women’s lacrosse team could not hold on to a halftime lead in its second game of the season March 1, falling to the SUNY Cortland Red Dragons 8–9.
The game was the polar opposite of the team’s season-opener, where it decimated the SUNY Brockport Golden Eagles 15–5 Feb. 26. While that game started with five Bomber goals in the first period, the Red Dragons took an early lead, ending the first quarter with a 3–1 lead.
The game started as a defensive contest with neither team making headway for the first five minutes. Though the Bombers controlled the ball for much of the first half, the Red Dragons started off the scoring with an unassisted goal five minutes into the frame after a shot snuck awkwardly past Bombers’ junior goalkeeper Lexi Held on a free position shot.
The next five minutes continued to look like they were in the Bombers’ favor, but a pair of wide shots gave the Red Dragons the ball, who sped down the field and took a 2–0 lead on another free position shot.
It was not until after Cortland put a third shot past Held that the Bombers began to pick it up offensively. 15 seconds after the Red Dragons took a 3–0 lead, junior attacker Chloe Nordyke sped past the Red Dragon defense and cut into the lead. However, less than a minute later, Cortland would extend the lead back up to three with its fourth goal of the frame.
The second quarter was a different story, however. Junior attacker Maizy Veitch took matters into her own hands to bring the Bombers back into the game, scoring one goal and assisting two in just over three minutes to tie the game at four. The Bombers put up two more goals before the buzzer sounded to take a 6–4 lead into the intermission.
The Bombers kept their momentum for the first 10 minutes of the third quarter, netting another goal to take a 7–4 lead. However, the Red Dragons would catch up quickly, scoring two of their own before the end of the quarter and tying the game at 7 with 12 minutes remaining in the final frame. They would go on to add another score to take their first lead since the second quarter one minute later.
The Bombers tied the game up at eight with six minutes to play, but the Red Dragons were able to net the game-winner with four minutes remaining and the Bombers could not tie the game back up. It is the first loss of the season for the Bombers, dropping their record to 1–1.
Veitch said after the game that she thinks the team played very well in the midfield, but was not able to be highly effective on offense.
“They were turning the ball over a lot, we just couldn’t finish on offense,” Veitch said. “We were making the adjustments that we needed to, but we’re going to work on it in practice and we’re going to figure it out.”
The Bombers take the field again at 3 p.m. March 4 against Fairleigh Dickinson University-Florham at Higgins Stadium.
