Brian Tedder/Collegian

This has been the longest four days of the year for the Massachusetts women’s lacrosse team.

‘ The Minutewomen lost a road game 15-5 to No. 10 Boston University, Wednesday afternoon, just four days after dropping a 16-4 decision to No. 6 Maryland.

Before the start of the season, UMass coach Alexis Venechanos talked about her plan to put together an extremely difficult schedule early for the Minutewomen (0-3) to prepare them for their Atlantic 10 opponents later on. She certainly followed through, having faced two top 10 teams already, with three more ranked teams (No. 13 Dartmouth, No. 14 New Hampshire, and No. 1 Northwestern) yet to come.

‘One thing about playing the best teams early in the season is that we learn where we are as a team,’ Venechanos said. ‘We can continue to learn from these experiences.’

Despite being outshot 17-6 in the first half, the Minutewomen stayed fairly competitive going into the half with a 5-3 deficit, thanks to some excellent goalkeeping by freshman standout Katie ‘Flo’ Florence who made eight saves, along with two goals by Jackie Lyons, and one by Meghan Reddy.

‘I feel like we did a good job in the first half, towards the start of the second half was when they really started to control the game,’ Venechanos said. ‘We told our defense to let Flo see the ball and she’ll make the saves, in the second half, most goals came on cuts or crosses which made it hard for her to see the ball’.

The second half was much tougher for the Minutewomen, The Terriers (1-0) scored two quick goals right after halftime and continued to pull away outscoring UMass 10-2 after intermission. The Minutewomen actually closed the gap in shot total during the second half; the final shot total was 32-18 BU. UMass, though, were far less accurate. Holly Drown and Stephanie Hopkins scored the goals for UMass.

One bright spot for UMass has been the play of Jackie Lyons, who now has three goals and one assist on the season and has become an integral part of the Minutewomen offense. Coming off a freshman year that saw her named to the A-10 All-Rookie team, Lyons was expected to make a leap forward and help replace much of the offense that was lost when top goal-scorer Kathleen Typadis graduated, so far she has done well.

‘Jackie has been a warrior, she never stops moving or attacking, we need to continue to get her the ball as often as possible,’ Venechanos said.

‘ The defense has had some rough stretches this season and is hindered by a lack of experience. Senior Jackie Rosenzweig is the only upperclassman left on the back line, which features several freshmen, such as Riley Perry. It is hard to tell whether the defense is playing poorly or if they are playing well against superior competition, but obviously Venechanos would like to see the scoring reduced.

‘The biggest problem with our defense is we are playing too much defense right now,’ Venechanos said. ‘Our best defense is keeping possession and playing offense.’

The final stop on UMass’ four-game road trip is this Saturday at Harvard, opening draw starts at 1 p.m.

Scott Feldman can be reached at sfeldman@student.umass.edu.