In their first two games under new Head Coach Malory Nadrah, the Oberlin College women’s lacrosse team outscored their opponents by an average of 14 goals per game, en route to the program’s best start since 2022.
Key performances from first-year Kylie Thompson, fourth-year Izzy Sunday, and third-years Megan Hiller and Olivia Corradi spurred the Yeowomen to a 20–10 rout over Transylvania University and a 21–3 demolition of Ohio Northern University. Thompson’s 10 goals and two assists earned her North Coast Athletic Conference Athlete of the Week accolades in her first week in-season as a collegiate athlete.
After their first two games were decided early on, the Yeowomen faced a much tougher test against Baldwin Wallace University on Wednesday. After just one quarter, the Yellow Jackets were up 7–2 and looked poised to run away with the game. However, the Yeowomen dug their heels in and were able to close the gap to just one goal. Despite being unable to tie it up before triple zeros, Nadrah was impressed with the effort she saw out of her players.
“We went down 7–2, we fought back to a one-goal game, and that’s awesome,” Nadrah said. “I told the team, that speaks volumes over a win–loss. That’s something you’re going to carry with you for the rest of your life.”
Thompson showed out again on Wednesday, notching another six goals to average over five goals a game. Although the first-year is scoring many of the team’s points, she was quick to credit her team with her success.
“I think a lot of [my success comes from] the coaches [who] are very supportive and push me a lot, so having their support and belief in me is a big thing,” Thompson said. “And also, I wouldn’t be scoring at all if it wasn’t for my teammates. They’re the ones who are getting me the ball, they’re the ones who are getting me on the field, they’re the ones who set me up.”
The Yeowomen have the opportunity to prove their resiliency just 48 hours after their first loss, when Hope College comes to Oberlin for a 7 p.m. game later today. Although it could be easy for the team to struggle to find energy to compete again in such a short timeframe and deflated after such a close loss, Nadrah expressed pride that the team is not letting themselves be defined by the loss, and are instead choosing to use it as a learning experience while staying self-assured after its first two wins.
“I think the wins gave us the confidence to see that what we’re doing is working, and a big part of what we’re doing on offense is playing together and being selfless,” Nadrah said. “So I think those big wins of everybody contributing showed us that, again, being selfless works. I think losing last night, we might have strayed a little bit from that. We might have tried to just be heroes ourselves, but what we’ve learned is that we can’t do it by ourselves.”
Selflessness is oftenly preached as a key quality athletes must have to be a successful teammate. However, coaches don’t always follow their own advice. Nadrah acknowledged that, especially as a new coach, it is paramount that she lead by example.
“Being a role model, that’s arguably the most important part of my job is making sure that I’m someone that I hope they could look up to,” Nadrah said. “My communicating skills, how I treat my assistant coaches, the way that we’re communicating, that we’re a team, taking input from each other and applying it, that’s really important to me. If they can take little life lessons from me, I’ll feel like I’ve done my job.”
Thompson expressed a goal that is a common sentiment among most Oberlin teams — to qualify for the NCAC Championship at the end of the season. While Nadrah has faith that her team can accomplish such a lofty goal, she is more focused on chipping away at the distance between Oberlin and teams at the top of the conference in the first year of her tenure.
“Obviously want to do better than we did last year because they all know that they can be better than the record was last year,” Nadrah said. “I’d like to end with a winning record. That’s always great. But I think for the NCAC, for us to move up a spot or two — we were picked to finish sixth, which is fine. But if we can knock off at least one or two teams ahead of us, I think that’s baby steps towards a larger goal of eventually becoming one of the best teams in the conference.”
