On Wednesday, April 27, California Lutheran University Regals lacrosse team lost 19-3 to the Occidental Tigers on Senior Night. Head Coach Laura McIntyre still had a positive outlook after the game, choosing to see the brighter side of the outcome. 

“We were really excited tonight. It was our first senior night ever so it was really exciting to actually be able to celebrate our seniors and our juniors that are graduating in December, and our graduate student, and it was just awesome to finally have an opportunity to really honor them for the amount of hard work that they’ve put in over the past three years. So it was just a really fun atmosphere and really exciting to come into tonight with open eyes,” McIntyre said.

In the first period of the game, there was only a single point difference between the two teams. Occidental had the lead with two scores as Cal Lutheran’s midfielder Giselle Bonilla scored once for the Regals. 

“I felt like coming in first quarter was actually really, really good. Like this is the first time we have ever been that close… overall this is the best game we’ve had all year,” Bonilla said.

As the game carried on, Regals Malina Diaz and Arielle Esparza, scored two more times while the Occidental Tigers scored 17 more times. They had shot a total of 43 times, but goalkeeper Cameron Mendez had successfully stopped most of the possible scores. 

“It was intense, I tried my best. I know that being the goalie, the mentality is that it has to go through the whole team to get to you. For me, I really wanted to do it for my team, it was our senior night and I really wanted to get everyone going and hyped up, and that was my main goal, for the team,” Mendez said.

Moving forward into their final game of the season, Mendez spoke about how much better the team has gotten and how much more chemistry they all share on the field.

“We’ve worked so hard towards this game and we have one more game left and I think we all just want to go out with a bang, and I think today’s chemistry was like no other,” Mendez said.

The players and the coach are closing this season with a positive outlook and are celebrating how far they have come. McIntyre is especially looking forward to the future of the program.

“This crew is so resilient. We’ve had a lot of challenges this season, on the field and off the field, with a bunch of different things and this group that’s finishing with us has worked so hard through all of that, and it makes me really excited for the future of this program, because they’re seen the challenges, they’ve seen the struggle, and they’ve come out on the other end playing the best lacrosse at the end of the season,” McIntyre said.