By Braedan Shea
@braedan_shea
A half-hour removed from an overtime-thriller victory over MIT on Wed., April 17, Springfield College women’s lacrosse coach Jenn Thomas’ beaming smile slowly regressed into fierce coldness of determination. While the victory over a top conference-foe was great, and nearly guaranteed a top-two seed for the Pride in the NEWMAC playoffs, Thomas was already looking forward to Saturday. She wanted to secure the No. 1 seed in the conference, but in order to do so, the Pride needed to take down a juggernaut in Babson.
Babson, who also entered Saturday’s game undefeated in NEWMAC play, has been Springfield’s biggest threat to the conference championship the past four years and this season has been no different. With four 20-point victories and wins over two ranked opponents in No. 13 Trinity College and No. 17 University of Chicago, the Beavers have been nothing short of dominant. Unfortunately for the Pride, that dominance continued on Stagg Field as Babson downed Springfield 16-9.
From the opening draw, the two teams found themselves in a physical, defensive battle. No pass from either side was to a wide-open teammate, and each shot was met by a plethora of defenders – if you could even get one off.
It wasn’t until 6:08 left in the first quarter, that the scoreboard on Stagg finally updated. After a Babson defender poked yet another ball away from Springfield attack Lily Johnson, Johnson quickly ran down the ball and fired a pass to junior Isabella Mazzi. In one clean motion, Mazzi retrieved the pass then dumped it to Samantha Andresen, who was waiting in the center of the Beavers zone. Surrounded by three Babson defenders, Andresen somehow evaded all of them, giving Springfield a 1-0 lead.
But by time Johnson emphatically slammed her stick in frustration following a free-position goal over 20 minutes of game time later, Babson not only responded to Andresen’s initial goal. Instead, the Beavers had nine responses, and after two more goals in the final minute of the second quarter, clung to a 11-2 lead.
“We really struggled on the offensive side of the field in the first and second quarter,” Thomas said. “We just dug ourselves in a hole. Our defense played phenomenal, but you can only stop the ball as many times as you can until they’re going to get a goal.”
In the second half, however, first-year Izzy Lalancette finally gave the loaded Springfield sidelines something to cheer about. In a span of nearly ten minutes, Lalancette caught fire, netting four goals. That same look of determination Thomas had just days prior had reemerged, this time being dawned by Lalancette. After each powerful drive to the net that ended in a score, not allowing anyone to slow her down, Lalancette didn’t smile once.
Heading into the fourth quarter, Lalancette carried the Pride to cut Babson’s lead to just five, as they trailed 13-8. But the Beavers initial first-half run proved to be too much to surmount.
While disappointed in the loss, Thomas is optimistic about the outcome. She still knows that this is a team to be reckoned with, as long as they focus on themselves.
“Right now, it’s about looking at ourselves in the mirror and figuring out what it is that we have to do in order to be successful,” Thomas said. “We need to control the controllables, and we need to focus on ourselves. We don’t need to worry about other opponents right now. We need to worry about ourselves.”
With one more game remaining in the season against the 1-15 Mount Holyoke Lyons, Springfield is all but locked into the second-seed in the conference. With the No. 2 seed, Springfield would take on the winner of the No. 3 vs No. 6 seed on Wed. May 1. Currently, MIT holds the three seed and Smith College holds the sixth.
If Springfield is to go up against Babson in the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season, Thomas believes that her team just needs to follow the offensive game plan.
“The biggest thing with them is the draw,” Thomas said. “They are phenomenal with the draw. In some aspects they did beat us. They were very successful with the draw and that was something that really did hurt us. However, their defense really wasn’t what killed us. Our offense just did not follow the game plan. We did not do the things we needed to do to be successful. In the beginning of the second half we started doing that which was great, so we’re capable of it, but it’s more so following the game plan.”
Photo courtesy of Springfield College Athletics