There is no place like being home on familiar territory after a disappointing loss on the road for athletes, and the Florida lacrosse team will benefit from that Wednesday.
UF (3-3, 0-1 American Lacrosse Conference) will host the Marist Red Foxes (2-2) in the first match of its three-game homestand and will look to rebound from a two-game losing streak.
However, playing in Gainesville won’t guarantee a turnaround for the Gators, as their recent troubles run deeper than location.
The team’s poor defense and inconsistent offense worry head coach Amanda O’Leary heading into the matchup against the Red Foxes.
In its last two games, a 13-11 loss at home to Georgetown and a 16-8 defeat at Johns Hopkins, UF has been plagued by its inability to maintain a high level of play, especially in the second half.
Florida allowed 29 goals and had 43 turnovers in those two games.
“Our team defense is still weak,” O’Leary said. “I don’t think we’ve jelled as a team, defensively. We have, right now, seven individuals that are playing defense versus seven players that are playing as a team.”
O’Leary is concerned by the team’s poor help defense when a defender is beaten by an opponent.
And she said UF will need to “finish” on offense to compete against the remaining teams on its schedule — and more immediately — Marist.
“Unless we see improvement in those two areas, we will just continue to plateau versus getting better,” O’Leary said.
To improve, O’Leary and her coaching staff have changed the starting lineup each game to find the best on-field pairings for UF.
Freshman midfielder Caroline Chesterman hasn’t had to worry about the shuffling, as she has been a staple in the lineup since the second game of the season. She has scored 11 of the team’s 77 goals so far.
She said the team knows it can compete against talented teams, as it did against Georgetown, but the key is to maintain that confidence when it takes on Marist.
“We do have the skill and the athleticism to win,” Chesterman said. “We just have to play to our abilities.”
Fellow freshman midfielder Brittany Dashiell has started every game this season, and she has 12 of UF’s scores. Freshman attacker Ashley Bruns leads the team with 14 goals and 14 assists on the season, and she too has started every game.
So when the Gators play at 6:30 p.m. against the Red Foxes, some of the usual starters will be on the field, but O’Leary will have to pick the best 12-player group for the defensive and offensive cohesiveness that has eluded the Gators so far.
“Hopefully, we’ll be able to find people that click on the attack and click in the midfield and click on the defensive end, and then we’ll be in good shape,” O’Leary said. “We’re working to get to that right now.”
