The Colorado College women’s lacrosse team nearly pulled off a comeback last Sunday afternoon against Pomona-Pitzer College but ultimately fell 15-11. The Sagehens withstood a furious Tiger rally, just barely escaping Stewart Field with a victory.
Sophomore midfielder Sadie Cole said the Tigers have high expectations and a lot of potential for rest of the season. “Pomona-Pitzer is one of many challenging opponents that we will face this year,” Cole said. “We have a tough schedule ahead of us, but we’re ready.”
After the Sagehens took an 11-5 lead 7:04 into Sunday’s second half, the Tigers scored five of the next six goals to close the gap to 12-10. CC senior attacker Iris Rayburn’s second goal brought the Tigers within two with 7:29 still on the clock.
CC had a chance to cut the deficit to one, but freshman attacker Steph Kelly was taken down in Sagehen territory and lost control of the ball. Nearly a minute later, Pomona-Pitzer capitalized on the no-call with a goal of their own, increasing their lead to 13-10.
CC cut the Sagehen lead back down to two with a goal from freshman attacker Annie DeFrino; however, that was the last time CC scored. Pomona-Pitzer put away two more goals to finish out the game.
Sophomore midfielder Mary Taussig tallied three goals and a pair of assists to tie her season high of five points. DeFrino and Kelly each finished with two goals and an assist. Junior goaltender Martha Smith also had a strong showing, stopping 11 shots for CC.
“There’s no doubt that this was a frustrating loss for the team,” said Kelly. “We didn’t show up mentally, and with our schedule, we can’t afford to do that.”
“We should have come out in the first minutes of the game the way we did during our comeback,” said Cole. “We needed the fire and focus that pushed us to come back throughout all 60 minutes of the game.”
CC hosted a set of round robin games over spring break. The Tigers came out with a 1-3 record for the weekend, now 4-6 overall, beating Wesleyan University (9-8) and falling to Pomona-Pitzer, Occidental College (11-13), and Skidmore College (11-13).
“We played as a cohesive unit for a full 60 minutes against Wesleyan to come out with the one-point win against a very good team,” said Kelly. “I would say that was definitely the high point of our spring break.”
The Tigers look for their next win on Sunday, March 29 at 11 a.m. as they take on the University of Redlands at Stewart Field.