NORFOLK, Va. – The Old Dominion women’s lacrosse team will travel to Campbell University Friday and host the Longwood Lancers in their home opener at the L.R. Hill Sports Complex on Sunday.
Both games this week were postponed due to inclement weather and unplayable field conditions. The Longwood game, originally scheduled for Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. has been moved to Sunday at 1:00 p.m., while the contest against Campbell has been moved to 3:00 p.m. at Baker-Lane Stadium in Buies Creek, N.C.
The Monarchs began their first season in the Atlantic Sun Conference last weekend and were picked second in the leagues preseason poll, just six points behind defending champions Jacksonville. ODU returns 21 players from last season, including Preseason All-Conference selections Ashmore Standing and Jessica Liberty.
Old Dominion is coming off a 22-1 victory over Gardner-Webb, where Atlantic-Sun Defensive Player of the Week, Karen Hayde, led the Monarchs to their first season opener win since 2012. She played 55 minutes in goal for the Monarchs and finished with an 83.3 save percentage and five saves.
Liberty led the offense with five goals and two assists, while also posting four ground balls and three caused turnovers. Ashmore Standing also recorded a stellar performance, as she finished with five goals and one assist to go along with her one ground ball, one draw control and two caused turnovers.
The Camels open up their season against the Lady Monarchs on Friday. The third-year program is led by second-year head coach Dawn Easley, who came to Campbell after five seasons as the head coach at Pfeiffer, where she helped the Falcons to a 58-31 record. In 2014, she helped lead the Camels to a 7-9 mark, 2-5 in the Big South and made it to the Big South Tournament where they fell to Longwood in the quarterfinals.
The Camels return junior attackers Loren Day and Erica Hitch, who lead the team in several individual statistics. Day had 33 goals on 57 shots last season and Hitch was close behind with 32 goals on 85 shots. Hitch led with 18 assists for a total of 50 points on the season. Day had 10 assists for 43 points on the season.
Rebecca Sheinfeld and Kaki Armiger added seven and six assists respectively for the Camels last season. Meredith Bechler, a sophomore goalkeeper, returns this season for the Camels after watching Brittany Kincer guard the net for the 2014 season. Despite little playing time, Bechler recorded 17 saves for the Campbell Camels.
The Lady Monarchs have a short turn-around as they play host to the Longwood Lancers on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. The game originally scheduled for Wednesday, February 18 was postponed due to inclement weather and unplayable field conditions.
Longwood is 0-2 on the season coming into Sunday’s game after falling to Navy (17-2) and Elon (10-7). The Lancers finished the 2014 season 9-10 including a 16-13 win over the Lady Monarchs on March 13 in Farmville, Va.
They have seven seniors and four juniors leading their team this year and were picked to finish third in the Big South preseason poll as voted on by the coaches. Katie McHugh, junior attacker, Sarah Butler, junior midfielder, and Christian Acker, senior goalkeeper were named to the Big South Preseason All-Conference team.
Fans can follow the action by tuning into Campbell’s live stats and the ODU lacrosse Twitter page (@ODULacrosse) for in-game updates. Live stats will also be available for Sunday and can be found on the ODU lacrosse schedule page on gameday. Be sure to check out the ODU Sports website for a detailed recap following each contest!
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