#19 UConn Women’s Lacrosse Stuns #7 Notre Dame
The surprising NR/#19 UConn women’s lacrosse team defeated #7/#7 ranked Notre Dame, 10-7, on Senior Day at the George Sherman Family Sports Complex in Storrs on Sunday, April 21. With two games remaining in the regular season, UConn holds a record of 10-1, 5-1 in the Big East. The Huskies are now in second place in the Big East behind perennial powerhouse #5/#5 Syracuse (12-3, 6-0 Big East), the team that was last year’s National Championship runner-up. In the preseason coach’s poll, UConn was picked to finish 6th out of 9 teams. UConn’s lone loss was an 18-7 decision to Syracuse on the road.
The Notre Dame game was the first of a brutal stretch of games that includes #7/#7 Notre Dame, #8/#8 Georgetown and #13/#17 Loyola. (Loyola is a Big East team for lacrosse.) This is a tough part of a UConn schedule that this season also included #18/#15 Boston College.
UConn was not expected to challenge for the Big East title after finishing 10-6 overall last year, 3-5 in conference. The Huskies has 8 of its top 10 scorers returning but had lost its top two to graduation and many watchers wondered if the team would be able to replace its most important one-two scoring punch.
Enter junior Lauren Kahn, an All-Big East second team player last year, who finished last year with 41 points on 30 goals and 11 assists. So far this year, Kahn has 54 points on 32 goals and 22 assists and has surpassed her previous career high in points (50) and could possibly best her career high in goals (38).
The team’s #2 scorer is freshman Carly Palmucci, a high school All-American. So far she’s accumulated 42 points (28 goals, 14 assists) and with senior Morgan O’Reilly blowing away her previous career highs in points (18) and goals (14) with 41 and 28, respectively, the Huskies have been able to find the back of the net.
Historically, the Huskies have not been any kind of threat for the Big East championship in a league that’s been dominated by Syracuse, Georgetown, Loyola, and Notre Dame. In fact, the 2007 season saw the Huskies finish with a 10-6 record which was only the third time in program history that UConn has had a season with double-digit wins.
There’s been some upheaval at the head coach position, too. Megan (Campbell) Cersosimo presided for two years, from the Fall 2005 to Spring 2007, and then left with a 15-17 record. She was replaced by Angela McMahon whose three years at the helm included one 1-15 campaign. However, the team did improve under her tenure at which point McMahon left to become head coach at UMass.
UConn’s current coach is Katie Woods. She is the former head coach of American University in Washington D.C., an area with a rich lacrosse tradition. She was able to maintain and then improve on McMahon’s results to the point that the Huskies are ranked (I think for the first time, although I can’t find that info in the media guide) and a big crowd came out for the Huskies last home game.
The lacrosse Huskies are continuing a tradition of ranked teams at the University of Connecticut, especially among the women’s teams. Basketball, field hockey, ice hockey, track & field, soccer and now lacrosse have all been ranked in recent years.
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