March 6, 2016
PALO ALTO, Calif. – The Vanderbilt lacrosse team lost a hard fought battle to the 13th-ranked Stanford Cardinal Sunday afternoon at Laird Q. Cagan Stadium; 17-10.
“I think the key to the game, and unfortunately it isn’t positive, is that we just got such a slow start,” said head coach Cathy Swezey. “We made a nice comeback in the middle of the game, and to but honest it was just too little to late, because as our team was gaining momentum and building back we just had such a huge deficit to overcome.
Three Commodores earned hat tricks in Sunday’s matinee, with senior Emma Dagres leading the charge by tying her career-high of three goals for the black and gold. Kelly Chandler and Mallory Schonk also earned three goals apiece. Schonk shot 100% on the offensive attack, with three her three goals on as many shots.
Quick on the draw, Stanford earned 21 draw controls throughout the competition and 12 in the first half alone, giving the Cardinal offence the necessary boost to take the 10-4 lead heading into the half.
“This is our second loss of our season, and once again the draw control proved to be the most critical part. So we have to figure that out, and as coaches we will. But the difference between this game and Louisville is that a lot of the balls were 50/50 and Stanford kind of just out hustled us or outplayed us to the ball.”
Much like last week’s matchup against the then-17th ranked Louisville Cardinals, the Commodores played a resilient second half, going on a four goal tear to lessen the gap, 13-9. However Stanford earned four additional goals in the last 15 minutes to solidify the Commodore’s second loss of the season, 17-10.
Callahan Kent was in the cage for VU, adding 14 saves to her repertoire on 32 shots on goal.
Vandy remains out west for their second game this week, as the squad takes on the Denver Pioneers Wednesday, March 9th, at 3:00 pm CT.
“Well travel tomorrow and have a light practice of some sort tomorrow and start watching film on Denver. We’ll get a couple of practices in before the next game, but our primary focus will be scouting on our next opponent.”
