Lady Flames fall to Navy
Women’s lacrosse picks up second loss of the season
On a cold and windy afternoon Friday, Feb. 13, the Liberty Flames women’s lacrosse team (0-3) could not get anything going, dropping its second game of the season, 21-6 to the Navy Midshipmen.
Navy scored its first goal within two minutes of the opening draw and had four with just over 10 minutes elapsed in the first half. At the end of the half, Navy had 12 total goals on 23 shots compared to only three goals on six shots for Liberty. Navy spread the wealth, as it had seven players score in the first half.
“We weren’t prepared today,” Liberty Head Coach Kelly Nangle said. “… It’s so easy to snap back into old habits but I tell them we aren’t that team anymore. We aren’t that team that loses by 15 or 20 goals anymore.”
After Navy opened the game with four goals, Liberty responded with two quick goals less than a minute apart to put the Lady Flames right back in it. With just under 17 minutes left to play in the first half, Liberty was within two goals and looked as if they had the momentum.
Nangle said “it didn’t surprise (her) at all” when Liberty cut the lead to two.
“I know this team is a lot better than they think that they are,” Nangle said. “We just have to continue working on that and working on confidence.”
Just as quickly as the momentum came, it swung right back to Navy after a turnover at midfield caused a one-on-one with Liberty’s goalie that was impossible to stop. Morgan Young for Navy buried the shot effortlessly to put the lead back at three.
Navy and Liberty then traded goals to make the score 6-3 with a little more than nine minutes left to play in the first half. After Liberty cut the lead back to three, Navy called a timeout that effectively ended the game.
Navy came out of the timeout and scored six goals in nine minutes, including one with only two seconds left in the half, to extend the lead to nine and put the game out of reach.
“Our defense as a whole played really well,” Nangle said. “But when we can’t take care of the ball on the other end of the field, it doesn’t matter.”
The second half started the same as the first, as Navy came out with four goals within seven minutes. They proceeded to score four more goals to make it 20-3 with only seven minutes left in the game.
Nothing Liberty was doing was working. In one case, the Lady Flames had a goal called back because of a lane violation. In the onslaught, one of Navy’s goals came off a pass directly from Liberty’s goalie, Juliann Elmer, that was intercepted and immediately put right back in the goal. Two Liberty players also received yellow cards in the game.
The Lady Flames finally managed to score in the second half with less than four minutes remaining. Navy had one more goal, and then the Lady Flames scored two in the last minute and a half to make the final score 21-6.
“With the amount of time they had the ball on offense, I think the defense played well, as much as that is hard to swallow,” Nangle said.
Navy had four players with at least three goals in the game and nine players with at least one goal. Liberty, on the other hand, had four players with goals, including two each from Nina Dunay and Michaela Rich.
The Lady Flames also dropped a contest against Vanderbilt Sunday, Feb. 15, 20-10. The Lady Flames will look to snap their three-game skid and pick up their first win of the season when they host George Washington Wednesday, Feb. 25 at 4 p.m.
SCHMIEG is a sports reporter.