Oberlin women’s lacrosse has a history of winning. The team won the North Coast Athletic Conference championship in both 1997 and 1998, and finished second in the NCAC tournament in 1999 and 2000, before slipping to sixth last year with the loss of key players.
The 2002 season will see the team working back toward that level, as the Yeowomen look to improve upon last year’s marks of 3-10 overall and 2-5 within the NCAC.
“I hate to use the word rebuilding, but in some ways it is,” Head Coach Liz Graham said of this season. “I think we’re going to be very successful. Whether or not we win the conference championship is another question.”

This will be a largely inexperienced team, with only six starters returning from last year.
“The returning players we have are very good,” Liz Graham said. “All six of them are key players and will see a lot of playing time.”

The 20-member squad features 10 first-years, as well as a senior and three sophomores who haven’t played Oberlin lacrosse before.
“The new people who have never played before are doing an incredible job,” one of the returning players, junior co-captain Briana Quinn, said.
Also among the returning players are last year’s number-one and number-two goal scorers; seniors Laura Kent-Monning and Selena Kansal scored 21 and 10 goals, respectively, last year. Kent-Monning and Kansal join Quinn as the team’s captains. Quinn was tied for fourth on the team last year with nine goals, and Graham said she expects even more this year.

Sharing that fourth spot was sophomore Maggie Douglas. Douglas was injured through much of the 2001 season, but averaged 1.13 goals a game when she was able to play. Between her nine goals and eight assists she had the best points per game average on the team with 2.13.
Rounding out the returning players are sophomore attacker Susie Armitage and sophomore goalkeeper and attacker Alexis Stoller. Stoller minded the Yeowomen’s net for much of last season, posting a 4.82 goals against average and a .459 save percentage. This year, however, she will likely see most of her action as an attacker, leaving the goalkeeping chore to first-year Sarah Pilzner.

New attackers this year are first-years Victoria Clark and Annie Gaus. New at midfield are sophomore Chelsea Wallis and first-years Anna Ialeggio and Yukiko Shishikura. New defenders are senior Nicole Falk, sophomores Libby Brouwer and Justine Strayhorn, and first-years Alison Evans, Andrea Hawkins, and Ann Stewart. First-years Holly Rousmaniere and Alison Olbrycht will split time between midfield and defense.

“In terms of team dynamic we’re a lot better,” Quinn said in comparing this year’s team to last year’s. “We want to be in [the conference tournament], especially since we’re hosting it. We want to be in the top four.”

The Yeowomen open their season with non-conference action tomorrow at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the first of eight road games for the team. Last year, Oberlin suffered a 7-2 defeat at Division II Indiana, but Graham said it has been a good matchup for the Yeowomen in the past.
“They’re usually a good first game. It’s typically a very close game and they’ve been a very aggressive team in the past,” Graham said.
Asked if the team was ready, Graham said, “I think we’ve hit the point where we need to see the challenge of another team.” Only that challenge, she said, can help the team improve at this point.