Winning on the road is one of the toughest things to do in all of sports, regardless of the opponent or anything else. In their first such game of the season, UConn women’s lacrosse discovered this the hard way against the Cornell Big Red. The Huskies went on several runs and put together a valiant effort, but eventually came up short in their first true road game of the year.
Even in the loss, Grace Coon had one of her better performances of the season, notching four goals. Interestingly enough, all of her scores came in a four minute span in the end of the first and start of the second quarter, demonstrating how good she is when she has it going. Those were some of the best four minutes of women’s lacrosse any player on the team has played this year. If Coon can figure out what was working in that span and channel it for the rest of the game, there’s no telling what she can accomplish the rest of the year.
Lia LaPrise had a more well-rounded effort, pouring in a hat-trick and a pair of assists. The graduate student also had one of her best outings of the year, as it’s her highest point-total so far. If the Huskies want to have success, LaPrise will need to have more games where she’s contributing in both the scoring and passing departments like this one. She’s capable, but will need to show it.
Sophie Sorenson looked great too, scoring a trio of goals. It’s been a long time coming for the senior, as this is a career-high. Down the stretch, it seemed like Sorenson was the lone player responding when the Big Red went on runs. Unfortunately for UConn, she wasn’t able to provide a response for Cornell’s final run, ending the game.
The Huskies started out on the wrong foot, with Cornell’s Kylie Gelabert netting the goal in the first 30 seconds of action. LaPrise added the equalizer a moment later, the last time Connecticut would score for a while.
Over the next 12 minutes, the Big Red went on a big 4-0 run that featured a goal and an assist from Amanda Cramer. Coon scored a goal to calm the storm in the closing minutes of what was a largely unsuccessful quarter.
Coon was absolutely feeling it from there, scoring three goals in the next two and a half minutes. Down just a single goal, Sorenson tied things at six, afterwards the Huskies went silent. After an impressive start to the period they were outscored 2-0 in the seven minutes until halftime, completely taking the air out of their attack.
They got their momentum back in the second half, with a pair of goals in the first few minutes. After some back and forth action, UConn took its first lead of the match with a Sorenson goal at the end of the third quarter.
Looking to close things out in the final frame, the Huskies crumbled, as Cornell posted a 6-1 run that spanned most of the quarter. Morgan Carter netted her first with mere seconds left, but the game was all but over, as Connecticut lost, 16-13.
The Huskies won’t have much time to dwell on this one, as they return home this Wednesday to play the University at Albany.
