The Gators want to play like they have the upper hand even when they don’t.
A change to the carding rules in women’s lacrosse this season has put teams in situations where they often have to play with a man advantage or disadvantage. Florida had its most impressive performance of the season in these uneven situations on Sunday in an 18-6 win at Maryland-Baltimore County.
After converting on less than 50 percent of their man-up opportunities in their first two games of the season, the Gators capitalized on both Retriever yellow cards in Sunday’s win.
“It’s something we need to continue to work on,” coach Amanda O’Leary said of playing a man up. “Opportunities are going to arise where we are going to be in those situations.”
O’Leary said Florida’s success when playing with a man advantage is predicated on quickly finding the unmarked player.
“It’s just really good ball movement,” O’Leary said. “It’s very similar to basketball. You got to move the ball quickly and efficiently and that person has to put the ball in the back of the net.”
Under the previous rule, the offending team could still keep seven players in the active third of the field while having just three players outside of that third.
The new rule prevents the penalized team from moving a player up on offense or back on defense, forcing them to play 7-on-6 lacrosse during the time the carded player is out.
With UF on the advantage, Ashley Bruns found Gabi Wiegand 12 seconds into the second half against the Retrievers. One minute after UMBC’s Alicia Krause picked up her second yellow card of the game, Bruns had the ball behind the net and found junior attacker Caroline Chesterman unguarded on the right side of the crease for a goal.
UF also excelled against UMBC in situations where it was a man down.
In addition to holding the Retrievers scoreless on one of their man-up opportunities, the Gators scored the first man-down goal of the season when junior attacker Kitty Cullen beat a triple team and scored an unassisted goal.
Cullen said the attack is only as effective as the defense allows it to be that when playing a man down. Whenever the defense can force a turnover, the offense will have a good chance to score.
“Our defenders are just unbelievable when we are a man down,” Cullen said.
The Gators had six yellow cards in their 14-5 win over Jacksonville last Wednesday, and while O’Leary said after the game that she was not pleased with the overly aggressive play, she said it gave them good in-game experience playing a man down.
“We are getting better at it,” O’Leary said. “The fact that we scored a man down was a testament to our attacking and being able to run by those defenders.”
Florida junior attacker Kitty Cullen highlighted UF’s success in yellow-card situations with a man-down goal Sunday against Maryland-Baltimore County.
