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BY ANDREW GREENBLATT

In print | Published April 16, 2009

On a gray and windy day in Allentown, the Garnet women’s lacrosse team fell to Muhlenberg by a score of 13-7. It wasn’t just the inclement weather that was cold, with temperatures in the 40s — so was Swarthmore’s first-half play. A flurry of Muhlenberg goals buried Swarthmore in a first half deficit that they could not overcome. For the second straight league game, and three out of their last four, Swarthmore was down by at least seven goals at halftime. Muhlenberg scored the game’s first three goals, and went on a six-goal run to end the first half, putting them up by nine, and putting the game out of reach.

The Muhlenberg game, much like Swarthmore’s last conference game against Ursinus, was a tale of two halves. The Centennial Conference’s third leading goal scorer Amy Vachal ’11 scored the first goal of the second half, her 43rd of the season at the 25-minute mark. Anna de Regt ’09 followed suit just four minutes later with her 20th goal.

Marie Mutryn’s ’12 24th put-away, sandwiched between goals by Emily Evans ’11, capped a 5-0 run that brought the Garnet within four goals with just over 11 minutes to play. However, that was as close as the contest would get.

Muhlenberg was unfazed by Swarthmore’s rally and held strong on defense, handling the Garnet pressure over the final 11 minutes and bringing the scoring to a complete halt to secure the win.

The first half has proved to be a menace for Swarthmore (1-5 CC, 9-5 overall) this season, falling behind at halftime 11-2 this past Saturday against the Mules, 8-1 against Ursinus, and 9-0 against #5 Franklin and Marshall. “I’m challenging them to play a full sixty minutes,” said coach Karen Borbee. “We haven’t done that yet this season.”

At the half against Muhlenberg (5-2 CC), Borbee reminded her team that they have come back before. Against Ursinus, despite a 8-1 first half deficit, the Garnet cut the lead to 1 with 1:15 to play before eventually losing 10-9. She continued, “We knew we could score enough goals to make up the difference. We were knocking at the door, and we got off a lot of shots.”

Just like their last game, though, second half heroics were not enough to pull out a win at Muhlenberg’s Scotty Wood Stadium.

“We definitely worked more as a team in the second half,” Evans said.

However, Borbee added, “We put ourselves in a situation where we don’t play our best for a period of time, where we have a lapse.”

Swarthmore’s improved second half play shows their ability to compete, but without a full 60-minute effort, it is tough to win in the very competitive Centennial Conference.

Despite being unable to spoil Muhlenberg’s playoff hopes (a Muhlenberg loss would have created a three way mish-mash for third place in the conference standings), Swarthmore will have a juicy chance against Dickinson, who, at 4-3 in the conference, is currently tied for third with McDaniel, and has Haverford and Ursinus nipping at its heels.

The Garnet fell to their rival Fords on a soggy Clothier Field on Tuesday by a score of 10-7. With Ally Grein ’10, the team’s only goalkeeper, sidelined with an injury, the Garnet sent midfielder Jean Dahlquist ’11 to the goal for her first career appearance in front of the net.

Despite Dahlquist’s seven saves, Haverford got the best of Swarthmore on the strength of a defense that kept Garnet leading scorers Vachal and Evans scoreless on the day. Four tallies from De Regt, including three in the second half, were not enough to vault the Garnet ahead of their Tri-Co opponents.

For the remaining four games (two conference games and two out-of-conference games), Coach Borbee has issued a challenge to her players: to put a whole sixty minutes together every game. “If they do,” she says, “I think they will be very happy with the results.”

The women will return to Clothier Field on Thursday, when they will host the Shorewomen of Washington College (1-6 CC) at 7 p.m.

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