NW Women's Lax News

2001 High School Northwest Regional Team competed at the US Lacrosse Womens Division National Tournament at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA May 26 & 27th.

Tournament Recap by Gene Peterson.

Overall the team's record was 1-2-1 (that's 1 win, 2 losses, and 1 tie.)

By way of preface, I need to mention that this was a VERY WET weekend in the Northeast. Everyone was thoroughly soaked and the fields, in the end, were quite the quagmires - even though Lehigh University is a monumentally beautiful bucolic campus (albeit virtually impossible to get to and tremendously isolated).

The team started off 9:30 Saturday with a very thorough thrashing at the hands of a strong Middle-Atlantic team, a double digit loss. Besides losing the game we also lost Lauren Riggers, one of our players, who was slashed with a stick in the face and spent the virtually the rest of the day in the med tent and emergency room. (She is fine and went on to play the next day.) While the Middle Atlantic team was good, I truly believe the players were very tight/nervous and did not play to their potential in this game. If it would have been our 2nd or 3rd game we undoubtedly would have fared better against them.

The second game, in a continuous rain (that was very heavy at times), was against the Upper New England 1 team. We fell behind but really picked it up and came back to trade leads. The Northwest team was ahead with about a minute to go when Upper New England snuck in a goal to tie at 10-10 and time ran out on us. Great game - disappointing not to hold on to win but a tremendous bounce back from the first game.

After attempting to dry out a little at the hotel, the team returned for a 5:30 game in the continuing rain against New York 5. This game was very exciting also but I really felt like the team was in control even when New York had little rallies. Ultimately it turned into a 9-6 victory - very sweet.

This 1-1-1 record put us in 3rd place in our division - and somewhat painfully 1 goal (the tie with Upper New England) away from second place.

The final game was Sunday morning at 11:00 AM against Lower New England. This was a well-played game with everyone working very hard. We had many, many shots that just missed - clanging off the goal post or getting stuck in the mud in front of the goal. In the end it was a tough 6-8 loss.

Photos coming, check back soon!