Over spring break, the Northern Michigan women’s lacrosse team traveled to Kansas City to play three games. The Wildcats fell short by one in their first game against Rockhurst 12-11. Next, the ‘Cats took down William Jewell 18-7 and beat Missouri Western State 13-7 in the final game of the road trip. The Wildcats are now 7-2 on the season.
“I was really proud late last week of how the team stepped up on the road, and I think that shows some toughness,” Head Coach Lindsey Majkrzak said.
All three teams the ‘Cats played are unranked nationally, and Northern is not ranked this week. The Wildcats fought hard against Rockhurst in the first game but came up short at the end. Quickly on Wednesday, the team was able to come together and go on a 15-0 run against William Jewell.
“You have to assert that you are a better team through athletic tough plays … you need to set the pace in a certain way and raise expectations in a certain way,” Majkrzak said.
Over the three-game period, senior Minnie Bittell scored a total of 16 goals. Four against Rockhurst, five against William Jewell, and seven against Missouri Western. Her incredible performance earned her once again the GLIAC Offensive Player of the Week.
“Minnie has consistently been great in every game so far and she’s really been able to bring people up with her … she’s so good at seeing through defenses that it’s really opening up some options for our players that are really good off-ball,” Majkrzak said. “Minnie is creating plays by just being threatening and that’s been really cool to see.”
Fellow senior Kaitlyn Bridger scored four goals in the win over William Jewell along with one goal in the Missouri Western game. Freshman Josie Lakosky had three points over William Jewell.
“Kaitlyn and Josie are two really quick kids that are good at catching and just darting behind people … and that’s something Kaitlyn’s been used to doing. It’s cool to see that continue,” Majkrzak said.
Freshman goalkeeper Lauren Esposito had 10 saves in the win over Missouri Western State, earning Esposito her second-highest save-to-goal percentage at .588%. Coming up this weekend, the Wildcats have their bye week in preparation for the next few weeks to follow as the season continues.
March 22 the team will make their way down to Ohio where they will play Walsh on Friday and Ashland on Sunday. These two teams will be the last teams the Wildcats will play who are non-conference teams. Both Walsh and Ashland are unranked.
“Walsh is one of the highest assist teams in the country, and they play really slow and they wait for you to over gap or over slide, and they’re going to just feed right over the top of you from low,” Majkrzak said.
Starting Friday, April 5 the Wildcats enter GLIAC conference play. First hosting Grand Valley State followed by Davenport at home on Sunday, April 7.
