Light from the sky beat down and reflected off of the green surface of Spartan Stadium Sunday afternoon during a women’s lacrosse game.
The Spartans took on the Southern Maine Huskies in a game they won 10-9.
Fans were heckling from the stands, aiming all their complaints at the refs in disagreement with nearly every call made against Castleton.
Voicing his opinion the most was a young man dressed in a black zip-up sweatshirt, blue jeans and stingy old looking Boston Bruins hat.
The Spartans opened up the game with control in the offensive zone for the first two minutes through a series of passes and shots setting the tempo early.
However, the Huskies broke the ice first, finding twine on their first shot of the game at the 27:00 mark.
Castleton responded just two minutes later when senior JenniLee Mark weaved through two defenders putting the ball behind the goalkeeper.
Neither team could seem to pull away from the other, matching one goal to the other almost every time after scoring.
The first half ended with the Spartans ahead 6-4 despite being outshot 15-10.
Castleton’s goalkeeper Rachel Bombardier was phenomenal, making big saves at key moments for the Spartans. She finished with 18 saves on 26 shots, but the saves came at opportune moments.
Offensively in the second half the Spartans were stunned, unable to score for 21 minutes. The Huskies on the other hand scored three straight goals to take the lead 7-6.
Brianna Mackay top shelved one passed Southern Maine’s goalkeeper to make it 7-7 ending the scoring drought.
Two more Spartan goals gave them the lead again 9-7, but Southern Maine wouldn’t sit down.
With 3:56 remaining Southern Maine’s Sarah Pelligrinella scored cutting it to 9-8. The Spartans were then able to maintain possession killing most of the time left.
For insurance, Castleton’s Kate Auer scored her fourth goal of the game with 0:06 left. The Spartans went on to getting their first win of the season.
Getting the first win is always a sigh of relief for any team and was certainly important for the Spartans today.
“Feels great considering we had three tough losses,” Mark said. “Going forward it’s a step in the right direction for us.”