AUBURN — Scoring the first goal of the game can be a good thing in sports. For the Edward Little girls’ lacrosse team it was an early bright spot before a dark spiral toward a second loss in as many days. Visiting Windham scored the next eight goals en route to a 16-8 victory on Saturday.

Francesca-Beth Haines scored just over two minutes into the game to give the Red Eddies (0-2) an early 1-0 lead. It lasted just 12 seconds, before Holly Spencer tied it for the Eagles (2-0).

The ensuing faceoff after Haines’ goal led directly to Spencer’s response tally. The Eagles had quick goals off faceoffs twice more in an eight-goal first half.

“I would definitely say the faceoff is going to be one of the things that we are focused on working on in practice,” EL coach Jess Somers said. “We did struggle to win the draws today.”

Katie Skvorak, Katie Herzig and Mya Mannette each scored two goals during Windham’s 8-0 run.

“(We’re) really playing well, playing a good team offense right now where everybody’s distributing the ball,” Windham coach Matt Perkins said.

While the Eagles had no trouble scoring in the first half, the Red Eddies had trouble just trying to keep possession, with turnovers ruining any chance of cohesion.

“We struggled with our basics today,” Somers said. “We had a lot of our players miss vacation week, which we’re struggling to recover from, to get back into the swing of things.”

The Red Eddies did end the first half on a bit of a high note, with Haines scoring again with less than two minutes to go before halftime.

The rest of the EL offense arrived in the second half. Haines added three more goals (and an assist), Megan Steele scored twice and Grace McBride also found the back of the net for the Red Eddies, who cut the deficit to as close as 13-8.

“The girls seemed to get some of the jitters out. They started to focus on their basics a little bit more,” Somers said. “They seemed to start meshing together as a team.”

The Eagles made sure to put an exclamation point on their win to end the game after the lead got down to five. Spencer scored twice in less than a minute and Kaitlyn Roberts completed the scoring with 11 seconds left.

“It was nice that we had a little sense of urgency at the end, and put it away,” Perkins said. “It felt like we were a little passive for a few minutes, and then just got right back in it and finished.”

The 16 goals EL goalie Mariah Vaillancourt gave up looked like a lot in a vacuum, but she stopped 19 of the 35 shots she faced.

“Between yesterday and today Mariah has had 40 saves on net,” Somers said. “She does an amazing job. She has some great saves.”

Even Perkins was left impressed with the effort of Vaillancourt, who has worked with EL boys’ coach Dave Barton — a former collegiate goalie.

“We had to be more patient. She takes away your first option,” Perkins said of Vaillancourt.

At the other end of the field, Haines also had a stand-out performance, scoring a game-high five goals.

“Frannie, she did a great job,” Somers said. “She had some really nice placement on her shots. She always does a great job finding the holes in the defense and capitalizing on it.”

The EL loss comes on the heels of a season-opening 6-3 defeat to Oceanside on Friday. The gap in goals was much larger on Saturday, but the Red Eddies played Windham to an 8-6 second half.

That’s progress, according to Somers.

“I think we definitely saw some good things,” Somers said. “I think the girls felt a little bit better about the way we ended the game than the first half. It’s just more to build upon.”

wkramlich@sunjournal.com