In what coaches hope will be a good indicator for the spring lacrosse season, the Women’s LAX team routed Eastern Mennonite University in a Fall Ball exhibition match at home this past Saturday.

The Panthers spent most of the time on the EMU end–racking up 15 goals to the Royals’ 3.

“I think it was a great start for us,” said Head Coach Karen Harvey. “Our freshmen–we got to see a lot of how they are going to play. It does bode well for us going into the spring.”

Harvey said that the team has been playing against each other for so long in practice that it was good to face an opponent.

“Being able to play against somebody else provided us with an opportunity to learn and do what we’ve been working on for the past five weeks,” she said.

While no official stats were kept on the contest, the big takeaway for Harvey was the coalescing of team chemistry.

“Team chemistry is really important,” she said. “And they showed a lot of it today. To me, that’s really important. The skills are going to come–and I thought we played well today, but team chemistry is so important, and we showed that today.”

One key element Harvey wants to work on before spring is player confidence.

“The more they play, they’re going to have that confidence,” she said. “Defensively, we probably could have put a little more pressure on the ball at times. There’s a lot that we need to get better at, and there is so much we’ve been working on–but defensively, there’s still a lot that we’ll continue to work on.”

Assistant Coach Sarah Perry echoed Harvey’s sentiments.

“This was the first time getting on the field all together in an official setting where they could execute plays, play defense against another team, and score on another goalie,” Perry said. “I think it was a great practice round for us for the spring.”