Lady Panthers fall to Bridgewater State and Eastern Connecticut

Plymouth State's women's lacrosse team suffered two tough losses last week, falling to Bridgewater State, 13-3 last Thursday and Eastern Connecticut State University 17-11 last Saturday. This brings the Panther's record to 6-4 overall, and 2-1 in Little East Conference play.

The two losses stopped Plymouth's four game winning streak, but the Panthers never gave up in either match. If you were able to see either one of these games down at Arold Field, you saw that this team doesn't give up regardless what the score is. The Panthers were down 11-3 at halftime against ECSU but went on a 5-1 run in the first 8:11 of the second half to get the score to 12-8. Two of these goals were by Carol Messler (Durham, N.H.), who also added a goal earlier in the game to complete the hat trick. The Panthers seemed poised for a comeback before ECSU got five consecutive goals to make it 17-8 with 7:54 left in the game. The deficit was too much for the Panthers to comeback from although Emily Buckle (Danbury, Conn.) and Cait Swanson (Holderness, N.H.) added another three goals.  Head Coach Kristin Blanchette said that the second half showed that "the players snapped out of it and realized that they were capable of beating East Conn" and that "it was nice to see them so confident and strong in the 2nd half."

The season doesn't get any easier as Plymouth played in their last regular season away game against Keene State this past Tuesday. Keene was the team that ended the Panther's season last year, so revenge will be on the mind of the upperclassmen while the freshman such as Messler, Buckle Mekenna Bay (Maracaibo, Venezuela) and Lorin Field (Hollis,N.H.), who has played outstanding this year, will be brought into the rivalry. The Panthers have beaten Keene before, as they beat them in the regular season last year 9-8. When I asked Coach Blanchette about Keene, she said that Keene is "returning all of their top players from last year" so this should give the Panthers a pretty good idea as to where they match up against some of the top teams in their conference.

 After Keene State, the Panthers hosted Framingham State in a contest yesterday.  This was the last non-conference game for the Panthers as their regular season starts to wind down.  The final two regular season games will be next Wednesday at 4:00 and then a week from tomorrow at noon. Both these contest will be at Arold Field and Coach Blanchette along with everyone on the Panthers would appreciate it if you can come down and show your support against the last two home opponents in Southern Maine and Western Connecticut State University.