Women’s lacrosse ends 2023 regular season undefeated

Dan Elson

The Riverhawks women’s lacrosse team finished its regular season undefeated for the first time since 2007. Shown, No. 20, midfielder Savanna Reitz.

Dan Elson, Sports Editor

The Riverhawks women’s lacrosse team finished the 2023 regular season undefeated for the first time in 16 years. 

In the 2007 campaign, the Riverhawks finished 19-0, which includes regular season and playoff victories. The team won the National Junior College Athletic Association National championship that year. 

With the Riverhawks winning all seven of their games this season, head coach Jim Griffiths said the team has “set the bar higher” for the playoffs. 

The Riverhawks will play at home against the Harford Fighting Owls in the NJCAA District playoffs on May 4 at 6 p.m.

“I’m just overall really pleased,  happy with them,” Griffiths said. “But we just still have a little bit more work to do. There’s a month left. It starts to get hard towards this time of the year [when] it gets warm.”

Griffiths added: “It’s hard to not get complacent when all of your wins have been pretty lopsided. I think I’m afraid we’re getting a little bit complacent. But overall, I was happy with it. There were moments [where] it was really good. And there were moments we just [needed] to clean up.”

Griffiths said the team’s 11 freshmen “blended in” with the returners. 

The returners have “been leaders, and then we’ve got a good influx of freshmen,” Griffiths said. “Obviously, we’ve got some very talented freshmen.”

Midfielder Savanna Reitz, a second-year business student, said the squad “was pretty adaptable. We [had] a couple newer players that just played soccer last year. And it [was] their first year playing lacrosse, and they really stepped up and they got the work done in practice and [in games].”

The Riverhawks averaged 20.1 goals a game during the regular season. That’s up a little over four goals a game from the 2022 campaign. The squad scored 141 team goals and tallied 53 assists. 

Midfielder Julia Sokolowski led the team during the regular season in scoring and assists. She scored 39 goals and had 16 assists. 

Sokolowski, a first-year transfer studies student, said the team showed “chemistry” on offense and defense this season.