A string of 11 straight goals by Duquesne stifled the women’s lacrosse team on March 25, as the Bison fell 16-5 to the Dukes in Pittsburgh. The Orange and Blue’s early run against Colgate was not enough to overcome a 16-6 loss to the Raiders in Hamilton, N.Y. on March 22. Maddy Molinari ’17, Sam Rickels ’16, and Emily Kookogey ’15 scored two goals each over the two games.

“I think in order to maintain our momentum we need to celebrate every positive thing we do on the field and keep each other pumped up. When we let goals in we tend to get down on ourselves, so I think it’s important to bounce back,” Kookogey said.

Against Duquesne, the Bison had trouble containing the potent offense of the Dukes. Katelyn Miller ’14 and Emily Becker ’16 each registered first-half goals to keep the Orange and Blue in the game early. Unfortunately, Duquesne reeled off eight straight goals to end the first half and began the second with a 3-0 blitz.

Molinari rekindled the offense with a goal at the 18:32 mark off an assist from Kookogey. From that point on, both teams traded goals with Cori Thielemann ’15, and Molinari adding the final two scores for the Bison on free positions. Duquesne held a 27-16 shot advantage and 15-8 edge in draw controls.

The Bison enjoyed a stronger start against Colgate after a 3-0 run was engineered by two goals from Kookogey and one from Rickels in the first three minutes of the game. The Raiders countered with six unanswered goals before Molinari dished a nice assist to Christina Manis ’17 for the score. Colgate added two more goals to keep an 8-4 lead at halftime.

“We have never come out so strongly and confidently against a team before,” Arriana Sajjad ’15 said. “However, once Colgate scored their first goal on us, we became frantic and lost control of our momentum. In this situation, we needed to take a deep breath and retake control of the game, but we had a difficult time reorganizing for the most part.”

Rickels scored on the free position to open the second half and cut the deficit to three. Colgate ultimately put the game away with 3-0 and 5-0 runs. In between those scoring spurts, Molinari found Blair McDonald ’15 for the Bison’s final goal of the game.

Molinari forced three turnovers, while Caroline Collins ’15 finished with six draw controls. Sajjad, who has been hampered with injuries, grabbed three draw controls as she continues to work her way back to form.

“It’s been difficult getting back into competing, physically and mentally, 100 percent coming off an ACL injury. Right when I came back into season from my ACL, I went out and got injured again with a concussion,” Sajjad said. “I have not been able to perform 100 percent in my game play, but I hope to be back at that level soon.”

The Bison have a pair of home games coming up. They will battle American tomorrow at 1 p.m. before facing Howard on April 1 at 6 p.m.