Will Hermens
For the Review

The women’s lacrosse team continues to play strong after a slow start in the second half of the season, winning three of its last six matches.
“Once we were in California for games, everyone had the same intensity,” sophomore attacker Monique Schreiber said. “We were able to travel as a team and that is when the most bonding happened and everything else started to fall in place.”
The team began to play well during its Spring Break road trip, picking up its first win of the season. However, the team had to overcome a coaching change during the off-season and a strategy alteration on the field.
“Everyone is involved in the transition from offense to defense and defense to offense,” Schreiber said.
Instead of players working on a designated side, offensive or defensive, the players have to work both ways.
Working to overcome the different defensive and offensive strategies, the team lost four straight games. This strategy helped improve communication between the offensive and defensive sides of the ball and the way the team bonded on and off the field. The bonding has changed the leadership roles of every player on the team.
“Aside from the four captains, everyone including underclassmen have been positive and encouraging,” Schreiber said.
Last year, the team relied too heavily on the captains for leadership. This year, all team members support each other and rely on all players on for leadership. With the team mainly intact from last year, it expects to see improved results.
“We have changed our playing style, and we made a lot of minor errors then that the team does not anymore,” Schreiber said, which would be a factor coming into the game April 16 against Pacific University.
In the first meeting of the season, Pacific won a nail-biter, 15-14, March 12. However, Linfield has made the necessary adjustments coming into Thursday’s match on senior night.
During the beginning of senior night, emotions ran high with early goals on each side.
Senior Sammy Smith scored the game’s first goal two minutes into the match. Pacific University rallied back with a goal 16 seconds later using quick passing and scored another goal, taking the lead at 2-1. After senior Martha Inouye scored for Linfield, Pacific scored five of the next six goals, taking a 7-3 advantage.
Linfield called a quick timeout, but Pacific pushed the lead to 8-3. Midway through the first half, Linfield slipped behind, but stormed back with four straight goals to make the score 8-7. After a back-and-forth end of the half, Linfield tied the score at 10-10 by Smith’s fourth goal of the half with 23 seconds remaining.
Pacific came out firing during the second half, notching four straight goals in a three-minute stretch for a 15-11 lead. Again, Linfield made a run to take the lead at 16-15 for the first time since the opening minutes, Linfield never looked back, winning 21-17.
Linfield held Pacific to seven second-half goals. Smith led the way for Linfield with seven goals.
After the team’s win, Linfield will complete the season April 19 with a match at the University of Puget Sound at noon. The team will prepare to defeat Puget Sound in a game that could be the last for seven seniors.