The women’s lacrosse team split its first two games of the season, coming back Thursday to win its home opener against Hartwick after falling to the Oneonta Red Dragons Tuesday afternoon.
The Red Hawks played the Red Dragons closely for most of the first half, but Oneonta threatened to break the game open with three straight goals to close the period. RPI’s Kim Yates closed the gap to two, but the Red Hawks were completely shut down after that as the Red Dragons scored seven unanswered goals to coast to a 14-5 victory. Meghan Gaul made 18 saves for RPI in the loss as Oneonta improved to 5-0 for the season.
Saturday’s game followed a similar pattern, except that it was Rensselaer that dominated the second half. The Hawks got on the scoreboard first, and the first half was very tight, with neither team getting more than a single goal ahead of the other. Yates scored with 56 seconds remaining to knot the game at three at halftime.
RPI came out very strong in the second half, running off seven goals while the Hawks could manage only one. Yates tallied three goals, junior Cater Ortolano added two, and freshman midfielder Michelle Delarm tacked on two more to lead the Red Hawks to a 10-4 win.
Rensselaer begins its conference schedule this weekend with matches against local rivals Skidmore on Friday and Union on Saturday.
