The student news site of Guilford College

The Guilfordian

The student news site of Guilford College

The Guilfordian

The student news site of Guilford College

The Guilfordian

Women’s Lacrosse

The women’s lacrosse team failed to execute at the end of the year, and saw their season end with a painful 15-4 loss to Shenandoah University. Guilford needed a victory to clinch a spot in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference, but instead, Shenandoah came up with the win and stole away the last spot.

Depth was a big part for the team this year, the year before and looks to be next season. With an only 19-woman roster that features three first-years and five seniors, head coach Sarah Lamphier will need to work hard in recruiting to replace lost talent. She will need to put together a roster that is able to maintain the physical shape to perform start to finish in the 16-game season.

As with many other spring sports, ODAC women’s lacrosse is a force. Washington and Lee led the ODAC finishing 8-0, 16-1 overall, and ranked second regionally. In Guilford’s matchup with the Generals this season, the Quakers were only down two goals with ten minutes to go in the first half. The Generals, however, broke away in that final ten going on a six-goal run to end the half at 11-3. The would go on to secure the win, 15-4.

This game, along with several other of the losses for Guilford, exemplified the issue of depth. In the loss to Roanoke, 13-5, Guilford only trailed by two at halftime. Against Bridgewater, the Quakers were down only 7-4 at half before sacrificing 11 goals in the second half, falling 18-9.

Their inability to stay in a game was a major part of the struggles for the Quakers.

At their best, however, Guilford had the ability compete with any team in the conference. Sophomore Amanda Dionne leads the team and ranks third in the conference with 41 goals. Senior defender Summer Fowler led the team with 19 assists, a number good for third in the conference.

But despite individual leaders, the Quakers needed more help from reserves to make stronger impacts in order to keep games from slipping away. In the conference play, they had the third-lowest goals (83) and shots (158), while allowing the third-most goals (106).

The team did show the will to win, however, in a comeback victory over Lynchburg at home March 29. With the lack of depth, a comeback victory is highly unlikely. But despite being down 7-5 at half, the team rallied behind great saves from senior goalkeeper Sam Milbourn, who was second in the ODAC in the category (149 saves this year). Guilford won, 13-12.

Lamphier looks to return a lot of offensive talent, but Milbourn and Fowler are both graduating, along with senior midfielder Demming Carlow, so the Quakers have a lot to replace on the backend of the field. It will be interesting to see who steps up for the team in 2018.