Completed Event: Women's Lacrosse at Cornell on March 28, 2026 , Loss , 6, to, 11
Final
Women's Lacrosse
at Cornell
6
11
Dartmouth Women's Lacrosse Weekly
3/19/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Lacrosse
HANOVER, N.H. ? Amy Patton is a big fan of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick's approach to gameplanning.
“I like his line about having to find a way to disrupt the other team,” said the Dartmouth lacrosse coach. “That's really what you are trying to do. Disrupt them.”
While Patton admires Belichick's ability to analyze an opponent, she had no plans to make like a typical NFL coach and bury herself in film of Yale and Columbia heading into the first weekend of Ivy League play.
Oh, there would be time devoted to studying up on the Bulldogs and Lions of course, but she wasn't about to go blurry eyed studying film for several reasons. First, they don't use tape or film anymore. Everything is on DVD. And because:
? They don't have many current DVDs of opponents. Ivy League rules stipulate that a team share just one DVD, albeit of the particular game requested by the opponent.
? While there are tendencies that can be culled from a DVD, Patton is a big believer that seeing an opponent with your own eyes is a far superior way to get a feel for a team.
? Patton is less interested in what the other team is doing and more interested in what her team is doing. All that said, just how does Dartmouth go about preparing and implementing a gameplan?
It starts with in-person scouting.
“Some coaches just rely on tapes and others like to see (an opponent) live,” Patton said. “Sometimes we can't see them live because we're a little too far away. But if we had our choice we'd rather see them live. I just think you can see a lot more when you are there. It's easier to judge speed and quickness.
” In general, if one of Dartmouth's three coaches has seen an opponent in person, the others will break down the opponent's DVD. But while computer technology has advanced enough to allow the coaches to easily cut and compile clips to share with their team, that's not always as helpful as you might expect.
“There's an underlying agreement in the league that we will send the best quality tape and while everyone tries, the quality of an individual game can be vastly different,” Patton said. “And not every game will be that helpful. I know when we send out some of our games I find myself thinking, ?They aren't going to get much off of that.' That's why I think you've got to see a team a couple of times to get an idea about them.
” Early in a game week, Patton, associate head coach Sarah Martin and assistant coach Devon Wills will mix and match their thoughts about the next opponent.
“Sarah will give me her notes, Devon will give me her notes and I'll have my notes,” Patton explained. “I look them all over and come up with what I consider the ?scout,' which are the general tendencies. Then we decide how we are going to play this team, and what do we need to do well.”
In the end they try to boil everything down to the most salient points. “We usually come up with three goals for a game,” Patton said. “Three goals for us that we feel if the team can meet, it will help us win.”
With that out of the way, on-field preparation for an opponent is generally done two days before the game.
“We'll go over the other team for just half an hour or 45 minutes. That's all,” said Patton. “It's important that the team understands tendencies, so that's what we go over. But if you get so caught up in the other team you are going to play paralyzed out there.
“You don't want to focus so much on the other team that you forget about yourselves. Right now we have a lot of work to do on ourselves, and that has to be the message we are sending.”
With back-to-back games this week, of course, the schedule is a little different than usual.
“What we will do,” Patton explained early in the week, “is prepare for Columbia on Wednesday and then have a walk-through on Sunday morning as a reminder, so it clicks in. Thursday will be the Yale stuff. That way Friday it's all about Dartmouth.”
More Gameplanning Thoughts From Coach Patton:
? “You have to be careful about having your team so programmed that a coach can just switch a play a little bit and it's going to catch you. I call that overscouting. Having your team too prepared for something. You want them to know tendencies but they are going to have to react in the moment. You hope that reacting in the moment is something you've been working on since September. Later in the year, when I know that a coach has overscouted us, I will slightly switch our plays to our benefit.”
? “Some years we focus more on tape, and some years not as much. You have to figure out as a coach how cerebral your team is. Sometimes too much tape can paralyze them. Other times they like it, and it makes them feel more prepared. It changes year to year, and sometimes even game to game.”
? “As coaches we sit down and talk about what we want to do but we always have backup plans. You need a backup plan so that if your main plan isn't working you've got another plan to go to during a timeout.”
Last Week in Dartmouth Lacrosse
A 17-8 loss to No. 2 Maryland (6-1) was a difficult learning experience for the Big Green (3-2).
“I asked a lot of our freshmen what we learned from the game, because as a coach you have to make sure they are learning the right things,” Patton said. “They said they learned they can't go into a game fearing the other team, and they did. That they went into the game unconfident, and that's exactly how we played.
“We played wide-eyed against one of the best teams in the country. They read that fear in our young kids' eyes and they pounced on it.”
Maryland opened the scoring just 31 seconds into the game and had a 4-0 lead after just 2:16 had elapsed. After falling behind, 9-0, Dartmouth played the Terps to an 8-8 tie the rest of the way.
“It took our kids way too long to adjust to the speed Maryland was playing at,” Patton said. “It was a speed our team hasn't seen.”
While Dartmouth managed just 13 shots, it scored on eight of them with Kristen Barry and Eliza Bennett each collecting a pair of goals. Barry also had two assists.
This Week in Dartmouth Lacrosse
The No. 13 Big Green opens the Ivy League season by hosting No. 10 Yale (4-2 before Wednesday's game) at noon on Saturday, and entertaining Columbia (3-3) at 2 p.m. on Sunday. Both games will be on Memorial Field.
“Yale has beaten us the last two years,” Patton said. “I'm glad we are playing them at home to open the Ivies. “We're 3-2 heading into the Ivies and the experiences we've had in those five games has well-prepared us for the league in a lot of ways. I can't speak for the entire team, but I know we are really excited to get going with Yale and the Ivies. Over the next four weeks it's all Ivies with one exception (home vs. Vermont on April 1)."
While Dartmouth is 10-0 all-time against Columbia, last year's 11-5 win in New York City was the closest game in series history.
“There is not a team in the Ivies you can take lightly anymore,” Patton said. “(Columbia coach) Kerri Whitaker is one of my assistant coaches on the U.S. team and she's a phenomenal coach. I have so much respect for her and what she's doing with her program.
“We know we have two teams coming in this weekend that are going to be tough. We have to focus on Yale and only Yale, and then focus on Columbia. It's going to be a real gut-check this weekend to play well through both of these games, but I have a lot of faith that our kids will do that because of the respect we have for every Ivy.”
Players Mentioned
Women's Lacrosse Postgame vs Columbia 4-18-26
Saturday, April 18
Women's Lacrosse Postgame vs Yale 4-4-26
Monday, April 06
Women's Lacrosse Postgame vs UMass - 3.10.26
Tuesday, March 10
Women's Lacrosse Postgame vs Penn - 3.7.2026
Saturday, March 07
