Over the weekend, the Grand Valley State lacrosse team overcame two conference rivals to improve to 6-3 (4-0 GLIAC). The Lakers squeaked past the Tiffin Dragons (5-5, 3-2 GLIAC) with a score of 13-10 on April 1, then trounced the Findlay Oilers 19-9 on April 3, dropping Findlay to 6-4 (3-2 GLIAC).

In the first game of the weekend, the Dragons kicked off the scoring three minutes into the game, but led for just 20 seconds before GVSU’s Meghan Datema put one past the Tiffin netminder to equalize the score. The Lakers continued scoring and didn’t lose the lead for the rest of the game despite not scoring for the final 20 minutes of the contest.

The victory was fueled by junior Erika Neumen’s six goals, the fifth of which put her at the 100-goal plateau for her career, making her only the third Laker in program history to reach the century mark.

The Lakers made it clear during the downpour after the game that they were not satisfied with their play, despite the win.

“Just a lack of focus and when you’re playing a team, no matter who it is, if you don’t score in the last 20 minutes of a game, they’re going to put points on the board and no lead is big enough,” said GVSU head coach Alicia Groveston. “I think we need to be more focused and more disciplined. The things that were working, we stopped doing, so we stopped scoring.”

Neumen, whose 30 season goals are good for best on the team, echoed Groveston’s feelings.

“I definitely think we could have played a little bit better,” Neumen said. “We went on a good streak at the beginning of the second half and fell apart during the last 19 minutes, so hopefully we can put those whole 60 minutes together and come out Sunday with a bigger win.”

The Lakers did just those things in the latter game of the weekend. Findlay, fired up and eager to compete with the class of the conference, fell behind 2-0 before tying the game at 2-2, but the Lakers quickly exploded for seven straight goals and eventually took a 14-5 lead into the half.

The second half was hardly reminiscent of the Tiffin contest as GVSU continued to execute the game plan that it played with in the first 30 minutes, eventually forcing a running clock to put the Oilers out of their misery as soon as possible.

The same team that sulked after a win on April Fools’ Day was upbeat and nothing but smiles on April 3 following the match.

“Overall, we just had a better mindset. I just wanted to play our game and do what we do best, which is to be aggressive, no holds barred, and fight for every ball, and they did that,” Groveston said. “Whether we won the draw or not, we were all over the field and working incredibly hard.”

Datema and Neumen combined for 19 goals, one assist and one milestone over the action-packed weekend.

“I think that this is one of the first games where everything came together. Everyone had the intensity today,” Datema said. “We focused and knew what we needed to do, and as we kept scoring, our intensity and focus kept going up too.”

The Lakers will continue their conference contests on April 8 when they travel to Canton, Ohio to take on Walsh (3-5, 0-5 GLIAC).