With the postponement of our Southern Connecticut State game (was supposed to be last Saturday, and had to be rescheduled for the following Sunday, which is now tomorrow), we had a couple of extra days to rebound from the disappointment of the Jefferson game, and to prepare for 2nd ranked, Pace, on Wednesday night. Our practices were good, not great, still, I felt we were well prepared for the Setters.

Wednesday was a beautiful day for lacrosse. As we loaded into the Vans for the 40 mile drive to Pleasantville, I stupidly placed my phone in a compartment on the door, clearly marked with a sticker warning against putting a phone there. I only noticed that sticker, after I tried to close the door and crushed the top right corner of my phone between the door and the dashboard! I instantly knew I would be spending Thursday, getting a new phone!

As we inched our way through heavy afternoon traffic, I tried not to think about the phone, focusing on the game, instead. Thankfully, we had left Molloy early enough that the traffic did not cause us to be rushing through our pre-game warm up. In fact, I thought we warmed up pretty well in their nice Stadium with its impressive Digital Scoreboard.

It did not take long to see why Pace is ranked 2nd in the nation. The big, fast, and highly skilled Setters, scored two goals in the first minute and a half, and though we would get one of our own, a few minutes later, Pace led 7 – 1 at the end of the first quarter! The Lions settled in and were able to slow the Setters down in the second quarter, but the lead was 10 – 2 at the half! Though the Lions continued to compete hard, they saw Pace extend their advantage to 15 – 2 by the end of the third quarter.

In the final quarter, after Pace had made multiple substitutions, we actually outscored them 3 – 2, leaving the final score at 17 – 5. Despite the wide margin, I was proud of our effort, throughout the game. Pace was very impressive, appearing to be in mid-season form already. We were definitely overwhelmed by their team speed, especially in the opening quarter. But once we realized how hard and fast we needed to play, just to stay close to them, we raised our level of play.

We had Thursday off, which worked out for me since I had to spend several hours getting a new phone and having all of the information transferred over. Yesterday, and today, we had good practices and hopefully, helpful (Southern Connecticut has only played one game thus far and they were not challenged) film study, in preparation for tomorrow’s make up game in New Haven.

As we head into tomorrow’s game, it feels like a big one, for us. A good performance would go a long way toward improving our team psyche. We know we are very capable of playing at a high level. Hopefully, tomorrow is the day we do it for a complete game.

GO LIONS!!