It took the Oberlin women’s lacrosse team a few weeks to get off the ground, but the Yeowomen took the season on a 4-1 roll. They came back to earth on Tuesday, though, as the Kenyon Ladies bested them 8-3 in the first round of the North Coast Athletic Conference tournament, ending Oberlin’s season.

The tournament loss came just three days after the Yeowomen had defeated Kenyon 10-7 at home in what was both their last game and their best overall performance of the regular season.
“We were really confident going into the game,” junior Briana Quinn said of the earlier Kenyon game. “We went out playing with nothing to lose.”

In defeating Kenyon, the Yeowomen earned their third NCAC victory and fifth overall. Their 3-4 conference record tied them for fourth with Kenyon and Wittenberg in the standings.

Because Kenyon had the best overall record of the three, they received the number four seed in the tournament, while Oberlin was seeded fifth, meaning the Yeowomen would have to travel to Kenyon for the tournament game.

“I think it’s very difficult to beat the same team twice in a row,” Head Coach Liz Graham said. “They made some adjustments to us, especially on defense.”
The result, she said, was hesitancy on the part of Oberlin’s attackers, particularly in the first half.
Despite their low shot total, the Yeowomen took a 2-1 lead into halftime on the strength of goals by Quinn and first-year Anna Ialeggio.
The second half belonged entirely to Kenyon.
“In the second we were more aggressive,” Graham said. “We fixed the problem from the first half, but we weren’t able to score.”
Kenyon, on the other hand, began to post goals at a steady rate, scoring six times in the first 18 minutes of the half. They scored one more at 5:54 to make it seven unanswered goals in the period, before Ialeggio put in the Yeowomen’s third.

Kenyon’s stream of goals was not the only story of the half, however. Some Yeowomen were frustrated by the officiating, as the second half saw Oberlin receive five yellow cards, while Kenyon did not receive one. Oberlin’s only senior, Laura Kent-Monning, received two cards in the period and was forced to leave the game.
Quinn said that the officiating was only tighter than usual, as Kenyon had received a yellow card in the first half. “They were calling a lot closer game [on checks],” she said. “We just took more [cards].”
“I may not agree with all the calls,” Graham said, “but the officials had nothing to do with how we played. We lost all by ourselves.”

The loss concluded a season in which the Yeowomen improved their conference record by a game and their overall record by two over last year’s totals. Despite the departure of seniors Selena Kansal and Nicole Falk early in the season, the young team showed marked improvement over the last half of the season.
“I think I expected [the team’s success],” Graham said. “I knew that we had a lot of potential and that at some point we would reach that potential.”

“We’ve come so far since February,” Quinn said. “We just worked and worked and worked all season long.”
Oberlin will return all but one of its regular players next season — Kent-Monning.
“Laura’s definitely going to be tough to replace,” Graham said. “This year she really stepped up and became a go-to player.”
Quinn and fellow junior Marianna Leavy-Sperounis, returning from a semester abroad, will provide the veteran leadership, while a decent-sized recruiting class will bolster the roster as the 2003 Yeowomen look to regain the form of the 1995, 1997, and 1998 teams, who won the conference title.
In the meantime, while the Yeowomen’s season may be over, the NCAC tournament continues, with the final rounds being held today and tomorrow on Oberlin’s athletic fields. Today’s action began at 3 p.m. with a second game starting at 5 p.m. Tomorrow’s game starts at 1 p.m.