San Diego State’s lacrosse team played their first home game of the 2020 campaign on Thursday afternoon against Arizona State University. The Aztecs won a thrilling back and forth game 19-18. 

Freshman Camdyn O’Donnell tied the game at 18 for the Aztecs, then with less than a minute remaining, she scored the game-winning goal. O’Donnell finished with four goals and three assists on Thursday. 

“We were going back and forth,” O’Donnell said. “My teammates had trust in me and that put confidence in myself.”

SDSU started the game down 3-0, but ended up taking the lead 4-3. Later, SDSU trailed 9-6 and 10-8 at halftime. 

“I think we played it close in the first half to our gameplan.” Head coach Kylee White said. “We really were missing some key things and that’s what we re-visited at halftime.” 

Out of the halftime break, the Aztecs scored four unanswered goals and led 12-10. However, the Sun Devils would not go down quietly.

 Led by red-shirt senior Kerri Clayton, ASU retook a 14-12 lead. Then led 18-16 with only two minutes left in the game. Clayton finished with six goals and three assists. 

“We wanted to push her [Clayton] under instead of letting her get open and take the shot she was scoring on.” White said, “We wanted to make them pass a little more. We needed to help a lot more.”

The Aztecs responded yet again, scoring three unanswered goals to finish off their home-opener. Senior Emily Resnick scored the teams 17th goal and O’Donnell finished the off the job.

“They gutted it out.” White said, “Home-opener is great, but that’s not what i’m thinking about. To win a back and forth battle and where it comes down to the end and they gutted it out, that’s the most exciting part of it.”

SDSU Junior Lexi Tan scored six goals on six shots and opened up the field for her teammates.

“It was all my teammates, they were passing to me.” Tan said, “I just looked and it was wideopen.” 

The Aztecs will have a difficult schedule, likely facing five nationally ranked teams during the 2020 campaign. 

SDSU lacrosse now sits at 1-1, with their one loss coming against Stanford University.

“The team that showed up today has to be the same on Sunday.” White said. “Just because USC is ranked shouldn’t change the way we play. We need to go in there feeling that way instead of the way we started against Stanford.”

Written by: Daniel Farr