Women’s lacrosse to rely on freshmen

After losing to Loyola Maryland in last year’s Patriot League Championship, the women’s lacrosse team begins its season at St. Joseph’s on Wednesday.

With eight seniors from last year graduated, including standouts Sondra Dickey—the 2021 Patriot League Midfielder of the Year—and Second Team All-Patriot League members Hannah Cermack, Alexandra Ladda and Samantha Sagi, this year’s freshmen have set goals for themselves to make up for these departures.

Freshman Caroline Eby was a four-year starter in high school and was named first-team All-District and second-team All-Region at West Potomac high school in Alexandria, Virginia. As a midfielder, she is filling in at a position vacated by three graduates last season.

“Personally, I want to learn as much as I can to help my teammates and help my team as much as possible,” Eby said. “Then as a team, I want to make it to the Patriot League Championship like last year, but this year we win it.”

Members of the Lehigh women’s lacrosse team practice on the field on Feb. 9 at Goodman Stadium. The team will begin its spring 2022 season on Feb. 16 at Saint Joseph’s. (Xinyi Ren/B&W staff)

Junior Gabby Schneider was named Preseason All-Patriot League. She finished last year with 21 goals, 25 assisted goals and a total of 46 points, earning her second on the team in total points. Schneider was named All-Patriot League First Team. 

Schneider said the freshman class will play a major role in making up for the absence of last year’s seniors.

“We have a big freshman class coming in, and some of them came in with injuries and they’re just returning to play now,” Schneider said. “We think they’re going to have a really big impact, especially in our midfield because our whole starting mid-field line graduated.”

Lehigh played St. Joseph’s last year. Lehigh’s 15-8 loss last season against St. Joseph’s was its largest margin of defeat the entire year.

Lehigh’s first home game is on March 2 against La Salle. The Mountain Hawks will then play Wagner, Siena and Coastal Carolina before beginning Patriot League play against Loyola Maryland on March 19.

Coach Jill Redfern, last year’s Patriot League Coach of the Year, said that the point production distribution should not change much from last year.

“We are expecting our offensive end to continue their point production from last year,” Redfern said. “We have several hot-point producers in that position group. So, I would say that is our most consistent position group going forward that should have a similar amount of success in point production.”

Last year, Lehigh had one of their highest-powered offenses in recent years. In eight out of nine wins, they scored at least 10 goals. 

The Mountain Hawks’ regular season will continue until April 28 when they play Colgate before the Patriot League tournament on March 1.