W Lacrosse: NMU back home, face off with rival Concordia-St. Paul

Dallas Wiertella/NW

SPLIT – The ‘Cats came away with a 2-2 split over the 8-game road trip. NMU will be back home this Friday March 17th at 5pm.

Lily Gouin

The Women’s Lacrosse team has returned home after traveling for eight days, playing four different teams along the way. The road trip ended up in a split for the Wildcats with two wins and two losses. NMU won the first two away games against Lewis and Quincy but fell short in the last two to Maryville and Rockhurst University.

“I’m really happy with those first two games because they were both wins,” Head Coach Lindsey Majkrzak said. “It was very interesting that even though those two games led to a win, it did show the problems that would lead to the way the rest of the week went.”

When playing so many away games, all of the team members need to help out on the field. One of those players to have a big game was senior midfielder Kate Mongold who, despite the loss in the Maryville game, had six goals.

“It’s really important to have about four people that can score at any given time … and Kate just really has stepped up,” Majkrzak said. “She’s a very intense human, she cuts hard, she drives hard.”

With the road schedule being as long as it was, Majkrzak believed it was tough.

“It’s really, it’s hard to be on the road for that long … we only had two practices, but one of them was only about an hour,” Majkrzak said. “And it’s not the same as being in your home field. There’s not the same comfort level … part of it is just exhaustion.”

This week the ‘Cats hosted Concordia-St. Paul who they consider their rival. All the players were ready and excited to face off against this team. Last year the ‘Cats played the team twice, winning one game and falling short in the other.

“We really want to be able to defend the Dome this year, and we’ve been playing better in the Dome than we have in the past, which is really exciting … Concordia has a really young team this year, but they’re really talented,” Majkrzak said. “There’s this natural rivalry there, and over the past couple years, we’ve gone from being very much the little brother to more of an even battle.”

With the Concordia game, the Wildcats were happy to be playing back home in the Dome on their home field.

“The Dome is such a unique home field advantage because it’s so slick and so bouncy,” Majkrzak said. “Our team knows how to predict where that movement is going, and you’ll see other teams stop short where they think the ball is going to go and then our kids, our team just sprints past them because we know how the turf rolls and it’s very interesting to watch.”

The ‘Cats beat Concordia-St. Paul 13-11 on Friday, March 17 at 5 p.m. The ‘Cats will travel to North Canton, Ohio on Wednesday, March 22 to face off against Walsh at 6 p.m.