This past Saturday, Feb. 29, marked the very beginning of the Women’s Lacrosse season. The Vikings hosted their first non-conference match against Kalamazoo college. The 17-7 outcome was not in favor of the Vikings.

The game started with a strong determination from Augustana: within the first couple of minutes, they put a goal on the scoreboard. Right away, Kalamazoo came back at them and kept the pressure on with aggressive defense.

Soon, they came right back and brought the score to a tie. But the Vikings increased their intensity and took back their lead. This continued on for most of the half. Goalie Courtney Veitch saved several of Kalamazoo’s advances on goal, keeping Augie in the game. Towards the end of the half, Kalamazoo managed to get the upper hand and the half ended 6-4 Kalamazoo.

“I think our strengths are like, tonight we played as a team and together,” sophomore Kathryn Hettiger said. “We didn’t have people playing individually or we didn’t leave one another in the dust. And I think our defense really is killing it out there even though the score might not show that.”

As the second half started, Augustana pressed hard on the Kalamazoo defense and had many attempts on goal. But Kalamazoo took advantage of the lead that they had going into halftime and very quickly increased their score.

“I think overall we played really well and worked out a lot of things that we’ve been working on in practice so not a negative outcome by any means,” Hettiger said.

Augie got a couple of other goals, but the rest of the game was focused on their defensive half. The Vikings defense held strong against the fast Kalamazoo team and batted away countless attacks. But in the end, Kalamazoo came out on top with the final 17-7 score.

“I think the major takeaway from this game is that even though it’s a loss, there were many small wins and many big wins as well as a whole because of it,” senior Lauren Amella said. “We did a lot of successful things and even though the score doesn’t represent that, I think that we worked well together and it gives a great starting base on where we need to go for this season.”

Even though Augustana didn’t win this one, the Vikings have a whole season in front of them to grow and learn. The team is young with only two seniors on the roster. But the team has nine non-conference games and another month to prepare for the CCIW conference.

Next game is March 11 against Loras.