Lady Flames shipwrecked

Women’s lacrosse sunk by explosive Navy first half

LAX — Sophomore attacker Kayla Foster jumped up and launched a pass. Photo Credit: Michela Diddle

LAX — Sophomore attacker Kayla Foster jumped up and launched a pass.
Photo Credit: Michela Diddle

The wind was howling in Lynchburg Saturday afternoon, but that didn’t prevent the visiting Midshipmen from firing on all cylinders on the way to a 20-4 rout of the Lady Flames at the Liberty Lacrosse Field.

Navy (3-1) shot out of the gate early, scoring the first five goals of the contest within six minutes.

After winning the initial draw, Liberty (1-4) had trouble possessing the ball in the offensive zone, which led to a quick barrage of fast break goals for the Midshipmen.

Two of Navy’s leading scorers on the game, junior attacker Julia Collins, who finished with five goals, and senior attacker Morgan Young, who finished with four, each netted a pair of those first five scores.

Transition defense was a noticeable problem for Liberty in the first half as Navy was frequently able to create fast-break opportunities.

“We really have to slow the fast break,” Lady Flames Head Coach Kelly Nangle said after the game.

“The transition goals are kind of killing us because I think our settled defense is getting better and better, but they probably scored more than half of their goals in fast break. We have to figure out a way to kind of slow that down.”

After Navy’s initial wave, Liberty was able to weather the storm, scoring back-to-back goals of its own in a span of 30 seconds to make it 5-2.

Sophomore midfielder Paige Britton, after receiving a pass from the back of the net, lost possession of the ball on a stick check but still managed to bat the ball — which was now on the ground — past the Navy goalkeeper for her third score of the season.

On the ensuing draw control, Britton won and found a streaking Hannah Quast, who then neatly flipped a pass to sophomore attacker Kayla Foster in the middle of the field.

Foster fired off a quick shot which promptly found its way to the back of the net. It marked her fifth of the year.

The Lady Flames offensive attack was short-lived, however, as the Midshipmen responded with 10 unanswered scores to finish out the duration of the first half, making it 15-5 at the break.

Especially impressive in that sequence was Navy sophomore attacker Meg O’Donnell, who tallied all five of her goals in the 23-minute interval.

The start of the second half was more of the same as the Midshipmen put three scores up in the first six minutes, including another pair by Young.

In the last 25 minutes of the game, however, Liberty’s play looked markedly different than how the game had unfolded prior to that.

The defense stepped up, only allowing two goals the rest of the way, and freshman midfielder Quast was able to notch two more goals.

Nangle stressed after the game that one half of solid play is not good enough.

“We’ve just got to come out and play two full halves,” Nangle said.

“I think against Richmond we played a great first half, and then the last two games we kind of had a rough first and a good second, so we have to figure out how to play for a full 60 minutes.”

Quast did not stress her personal successes but rather discussed her goals from the
team as a whole.

“From each game we play we can take things we learn and make sure we don’t repeat the same mistake twice,” Quast said.

“It’s good because we play these teams that are good competition in the beginning, and we learn from them each and every game, and we get better each time.”

The Midshipmen made the final score 20-4 by adding two more goals in the closing minutes, but Nangle was in good spirits after the game, saying that a tough loss like this one is a great learning experience for her players.

“I think it’s important to take the positives and build off what we’re learning from each game. We know we have a tough stretch — that’s just the way it is. I’m a big believer in it because I think that’s how we get better. But we have to be able to make the changes and pinpoint the things that we need to improve on and then improve upon them,” Nangle said.

“If we do that little by little, then we will be in great shape by the time we get to conference, and that’s what matters.”

Liberty looks to rebound from the loss as the Lady Flames take on Old Dominion Saturday, March 4 in Lynchburg.

brienza is a guest writer.

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