WAUKESHA, Wis. - Young, inexperienced teams often struggle to sustain the momentum with the game on the line.
The Carroll University women's lacrosse team experienced that firsthand as it lost to Alma College 6-3 in a nonconference showdown at Schneider Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
It was the seventh consecutive loss for the Pioneers, who remained winless at home and dropped to 1-8 overall.
Carroll led 3-2 at halftime but Alma responded with four unanswered goals during the second half to complete the comeback.
Graduate attacker Donna January (Andower, Minn.), sophomore midfielder Katie Majewski (Mundelein, Ill.) and sophomore midfielder Ariannah Ritter (Sun  Prairie, Wis.) each scored an unassisted first-half goal but Carroll couldn't sustain the momentum over the course of the final 30 minutes.
Despite the frustrating second-half collapse, Carroll head coach Michael Hodge was pleased with his team's effort and progress.
"We continue to make steady progress each day so we just need to keep working hard on the little things and focus on playing a solid 60 minutes," said Hodge, noting the valuable contributions of junior defender Emily Gleesing (Big Bend, Wis.), sophomore goalkeeper Shelby Schoob (Sun Prairie, Wis.) and sophomore defender Natasha Niles (Hydesville, Calif.). "Over the course of the past few games, we've had moments of brilliance but they have been offset by mistakes.
"Today, for the most part, we played a hard game of lacrosse and put ourselves in good position for a victory. It was one of those situations where the game could've gone either way with one or two more goals. We had our share of chances but their goalkeeper stepped up to the challenge and made some incredible saves to prevent it from happening. Unfortunately, things just didn't go our way in the second half. That said, if we continue to give this type of effort, there will be a lot of good days to come."
Junior attackers Shelby Frazer and Katherine Rogers each had two goals for Alma, which improved to 6-2 overall. Senior midfielder Darby Kahler and freshman attacker Olivia Benoit each added a goal for the Scots, who scored three times within the opening 13 minutes of the second half. Freshman goalkeeper Allie Ray registered 11 saves in playing the entire game.
Schoob (Sun Prairie, Wis.) had six saves in going the distance for Carroll, which maintained a 14-13 shot-on-goal margin - generating seven in both the first and second halves.