Dana Joss and Jordan Howard run after the ball in the game against Winthrop.
After an out-of-conference schedule where the Longwood lacrosse team went 3-7, the Lancers won two key conference games and continue to seek more. Longwood currently sits third in the Big South conference standings with a 2-1 record after losing to conference powerhouse High Point University and narrowly beating both Radford University and Gardner-Webb University.
Only the top four teams make the Big South tournament.
Longwood has gone 3-2 in their last five games and scored double digit goals in the three wins.
“Our team is able to come together and fix what’s going on and on offense we are able to find each other and learn everyone’s strengths, transition from defense to offense and reduce turnovers,” said junior defender Jordan Howard.
Head coach Elaine Jones said after the first half of the conference schedule, her team is feeling confident and feels the non-conference games prepared her team well.
“We had a couple of really tight games that frankly I think we should’ve won but the fact that we went through that experience has helped us in the one goal victories we just won,” she said.
Injuries to key players and a young team have been tough on the Lancers up to this point in the season. The Lancers have ten true freshmen and have had multiple injuries to different players including 2018 All-Conference player Molly Barkman.
“It’s been a little bit of a struggle to balance those things but we’ve talked to the team about dealing with things you can control," Jones said. "The group that shows up to play, we can control that.”
This season, the Lancers only have two seniors after graduating seven last season. Because of this, the junior class has to step in and fill the void and according to junior attacker Kaitlin Luccarelli, the junior players did just that.
“It’s really made the junior class step up as a whole because going into your senior year you’re definitely prepared after three years of being a leader but junior year forced you out of your shell to be a leader even if you didn’t want to be," said Luccarelli. "I think all nine of us have stepped it up and we’ve really become close leadership-wise and always have each other’s back.”
Jones said her goal for the rest of the season is to make the semi-final game in the Big South tournament while Luccarelli is also confident in her team’s ability going into conference play.
“I’m really looking forward to the rest of conference, I know we can definitely pull out better than we have in the past few years I’ve been on the team,” Luccarelli said.
