Letting up or slowing down were not in the cards for Augustana women’s lacrosse in the team’s 25-3 victory against Carthage College’s Lady Reds in the CCIW tournament championship game.
Head coach Meredith Newman said that she is proud of her team for keeping the momentum going throughout the game’s entirety, no matter the score.
“We didn’t let up, and we didn’t slow down slow,” said Newman. “And, that’s what we need to have heading into the NCAA tournament with some tougher teams ahead.”
Within the first period of play, the Vikings scored five goals in six minutes of play. During that six minutes, sophomore attacker Anne Hopkins scored two goals. Senior attacker Hilary Kargl and senior mid-fielder Kelly Stelzer each scored a goal a piece. And, sophomore mid-fielder Olivia Mayer scored the fifth goal.
With five goals under the Viking’s belt, Mayer said this moment could be described as a sense of security but also a push to drive forward.
“We knew with the five goals that it was just the beginning of the end,” said Mayer. “We figured that would be the pace the whole game, and that’s how it was going to be.”
The pace didn’t cease to slow, with the Vikings scoring 12 more goals in the first period to Carthage’s two.
Newman said that is when she felt most confident in her team.
“We really hit our groove, and I could tell that we had all of the momentum,” said Newman. “The Carthage team seemed to be giving up, so we kept going.”
Augustana did “keep going,” scoring eight more points in the game and challenging each other in early preparation for future opponents in the NCAA tournament.
“The goal of this game was to kind of test our limits,” said Newman. “I told our offense every time we have the ball take your defenders for a test drive and see what she’s got to work with. Because when we play tougher teams, we are going to have to be very aggressive, constantly moving towards the goal, whereas in some of the games recently, we’ve had to take a step back and make 60 minutes of lacrosse last and really temper our efforts.”
Moving into possible post-season play, the Vikings need a bid to officially make it into NCAA tournament.
“It’s really up to the NCAA judges, and we will find out tomorrow at 8:30 p.m., and the overarching goal is to do better every year, but it’s just one step at a time right now,” said Mayer.
Newman agrees with Mayer that she wants to make it past the Sweet Sixteen to reach the team’s goal of doing better every year, but she ultimately wants to see the team make it to the Final Four in Philadelphia.
“We would love to be playing in Philadelphia, and we’ve been to the Sweet Sixteen two years in a row now,” said Newman. “And they want to push past that level, and from what I saw from them today, I really think that we could compete. We could be going to Philadelphia, like I said it’s up to them every day they come out to practice and every game we play from here on out is how many days of lacrosse they have left.”