The Queen’s Women’s Lacrosse team achieved two wins in one day on home turf this past weekend.
The team lined up on Tindall Field the morning of Sept. 9 to take on the University of Toronto Varsity Blues as their first opponent of the day.
Right away the Gaels displayed dominance. With two goals in the first five minutes,fans—including many team members’ parents and family—had plenty to cheer about.
With approximately six minutes left, the Varsity Blues scored their first goal of the game.
By the end of the first quarter, the Varsity Blue’s hopes sank when the Gaels were up 7-1.
“Everyone looked pretty cohesive early on, which is great,” Head Coach Mike Watson told The Journal in an interview. “We did a great job in transition, definitely used our speed and used our legs.”
Going into the second quarter, the Gaels didn’t take their foot off the gas, and were up 11-1 midway through the quarter.
The Varsity Blues’ second goal came shortly after Queen’s eleventh.
In the third quarter another Queen’s goal was followed by the Varsity Blues’ third. Astime went on, the score climbed to15-3.
With aggression and speed building into the fourth quarter, the Gaels continued to get stronger. They scored three more goals, puttingthe score at 18-3.
The Varsity Blues scored one last goal, followed by one response from the Gaels to finalize the game at 19-4.
The team, having only been together for about two weeks, was proud of their game.
“I think we played really well,” midfielder Brooke Rutledge said in an interview with The Journal after the game. “It was our first game, all as a team. I think we got out the kinks and we’re ready to get moving in the season.”
Fourth-year midfielder Abby Lee felt the same way.
“We have, based on this game, a great foundation to build upon for the rest of the year,” she said. “We’re super excited about that.”
Rutledge scored one goal while Lee scored two. Both players had multiple assists.
In a post-game interview, Watson mentioned the win against U of T prepared the Gaels for a strong game against the Ontario Tech Ridgebacks as their second game of the day.
“We want to try to carry the momentum into this afternoon,” Watson said. “We had a deep bench, so [we’re] trying to take advantage of that.”
The team beat the Ridgebacks in their afternoon game 21-1.
As the Gaels’ only home tournament prior to hosting the OUA Championships in October, Watson mentioned the team needs to continue this type of play on the road to prove they deserve to be playing for gold.
“[We’re] just really trying to iron out our systems and trying to kind of bring things together and continue to work together and I think if we can do that,” Watson said. “We will have some success.”
The Women’s Lacrosse team will face off against the Varsity Blues and Trent Excalibur next Saturday in Toronto.
Tags
Abby Lee, Brooke Rutledge, Mike Watson, Ontario Tech, U of T, Women's lacrosse
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.