The women’s lacrosse team began their season on Feb. 15, falling 18-1 while on the road against the No. 13/14 Stony Brook Seawolves. The Orange and Blue then found their offense in their home opener against No. 7/8 Penn State on Feb. 19, but were outgunned in the eventual 21-9 defeat.

“Stony Brook was a tough opponent, but it is great to play top-20 teams in the beginning of the season,” Sophie Kleinert ’14 said. “That way defense gets great practice and we are used to operating under pressure. We know what we need to work on and the score definitely didn’t reflect our play.”

“Playing a team like Stony Brook first game of the season was both exciting and challenging,” Elizabeth Gauf ’14 said. “We did a lot of things well in the game but also identified some areas we definitely can improve on. Areas we are looking to improve on include our transition play, creating more shot opportunities for our offense, and our defense causing turnovers.”

The Bison defense held strong against a tough Stony Brook offense in the first 10 minutes of the match, yielding only two goals. The rest of the half proved difficult for the Orange and Blue with the Seawolves proceeding to score six more goals in the span of seven minutes. Kleinert capitalized on a nice pass from Katelyn Miller ’14 for the Bison’s first goal at the 11:03 mark, but Stony Brook retaliated with three more goals to give the Seawolves a healthy 11-1 advantage going into the half.

“I was really excited about our performance against Stony Brook,” Char Damico ’14 said. “It’s frustrating because the score does not reflect how well we played. We dominated in draw controls and worked really well as a unit on attack–all we need to do is finish.”

The second half belonged to Stony Brook, tallying seven more goals to finish out the scoring. The Bison defense showed improvement, holding the Seawolves to 11 shots in the second half, as opposed to 19 in the first half. The Orange and Blue also finished the game with a 13-8 draw control advantage, with Kleinert leading the team with four draw controls. Madison Molinari ’17 also led the team with two caused turnovers, while Elizabeth Duswalt ’17 played her first collegiate game in goal and recorded seven saves.

“Despite the ending score, we played very well against this team and were pleased with our performance,” Andrea Feldman ’14 said. “Our goalie [Duswalt] came up with some amazing saves, our defensive unit challenged their attackers and our attack was also able to make their defense work. Playing top teams, such as Stony Brook, shows exactly what it is we need to continue to improve on before our competition begins in the Patriot League.”

Against Penn State, the Bison kept the score close in the opening minutes, thanks to goals from Molinari and Emily Kookogey ’15. The Nittany Lions then went on an 8-0 run and left the Bison facing a 12-5 deficit at the half. To the Orange and Blue’s credit, the offense continued to fight back, scoring four more goals throughout the second half against a stingy Penn State defense. The Bison eventually fell by a final score of 21-9.

The Bison will hit the road again tomorrow when they travel to face Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.