On Thursday, the Coppell girls lacrosse team lost, 9-7, to Dallas Ursuline Academy at CMS North Field. 

“We defended really well on transition all the way back,” Coppell senior attacker Sadie Harp said. “We absolutely killed it there. When we did have possession down on the offense, we ran our plays normally.” 

According to teammates, Coppell sophomore defender Berlynn Engelhardt stood out on the field. While the team had trouble controlling the ball, Engelhardt battled with Ursuline junior attacker Tess Hovivian. 

“We were playing against a team that had really strong load attackers,” Engelhardt said. “I was marked up on [Hovivian], and I kind of just had to hold her the whole game.”

Despite the loss, Coppell played a better second half. 

“We probably could have done a little bit better on our transition and just picking it up a little,” Harp said. “It was a little awkward in the beginning, but we kind of got to our flow in the second half and put in a lot of effort there.” 

The Cowgirls had a hard time with passing, something they hope to fix for the upcoming tournament on Feb. 15 against the Frisco Raccoons. 

“Our main struggle with the game tonight was that we couldn’t catch most of the transition passes,” Engelhardt said. “We are not moving the ball fast enough. We were looking for people that weren’t open whenever we could have just taken the ball ourselves, and weren’t going for the ball as much as we should have.”

Moving forward, Coppell hopes to match its opponents intensity from the start of each match.

“We have a habit of not trying hard enough in games until the score gets kind of bad,” Coppell senior defender Claire Bryant said. “We need to break that habit. We’re going to start putting in 100 percent effort right from the first whistle, because we can do better.”

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