(Photo: Xavier Litman/WCSN)
TEMPE — Senior night was the occasion for Arizona State women’s lacrosse final regular season contest Friday afternoon, with key contributors like graduate students midfielder Kaylon Buckner and attacker Katie Brodsky playing their final home games for the program.
Head Coach Taryn Vanthof enjoyed her first senior night on the Sun Devil coaching staff, calling the afternoon “bittersweet” as she’s going to miss the players from the 2023 class.
“Senior nights are always sad but exciting. It’s bittersweet getting these kids out here on their home field for the last time but at the same time recognizing how much they’ve done wearing the Sun Devil uniform,” said VanThof
In a game that did not mean anything for the Pac-12 conference standings, No. 20 Southern California got the win in Tempe with an 11-6 final score, although the game ended in the loss column, this performance was much stronger than the earlier meeting between these two sides that ended 17-6 in Los Angeles.
“A ton of growth from the last time we played USC and I’m proud of that growth in a lot of moments. It was exciting to see,” said VanThof
In her first season as head coach, VanThof has preached often about growth and development, and on Friday, she claimed to be proud of the growth her team has shown over the course of their regular season.
“Iq and gaining trust in each other and trust in the units and trusting the game plan as a whole, and over the last few games you can see that you can feel that, on the field, I can feel it, my kids can feel it I think that been a huge momentum swing over the last couple weeks,” said VanThof
The Sun Devils dug themselves a hole early going down 4-0 in the first quarter of action, allowing a talented Trojan team to not look back as they held the lead for the duration of the game. A short-lived run by the Sun Devils was not enough to get them back into the game with the closest score being 5-3 midway through the second.
ASU played an even game on paper Friday afternoon, tallying 14 shots on goal compared to USC’s 16, and they dominated the draw-control battle winning 15-6. ASU did however turn the ball over almost three times as much as USC which ended up costing them.
For USC, junior midfielder Claudia Shevitz scored a hattrick in this contest, her ability to break the line and apply pressure defensively was too much for ASU.
Junior attacker Maggie Brown was also a standout performer for the Trojans, as she finished the game with three goals of her own playing a key role early scoring all three of her goals in the first half.
For the Sun Devils, freshman attacker Lydia Oldknow scored two goals in the contest. She’s had a solid freshman campaign, scoring 17 goals on the year and finding another 7 assists giving her the fifth most points out of all the players on the Sun Devil roster.
ASU’s next contest is in the Pac-12 tournament, where they will travel to Berkley to face California in the first-round matchup.
The Sun Devils had success against the Golden Bears this year, winning both contests and scoring 28 goals in the process — the most the Sun Devils have scored against any one opponent this year.
For Buckner, she has some added confidence knowing they have what it takes to win their first-round matchup next week.
“Yeah, I’d say confidence for sure is something that comes to mind,” Buckner said about Cal. “But we just have to play our game and worry about ourselves and not worry about them.
“I’m very confident in my teammates, I think the season might have shown what we are capable of numbers wise but I think as a team we are all super close and if we all go together we can accomplish anything.”
