Stevens Bounces Back with 16-8 Win Over Wheaton
Rob Kulish
CLERMONT, Fla. (March 13, 2013) – The Stevens Institute of Technology women’s lacrosse team bounced back from a tough loss to No. 4 Gettysburg College with a convincing 16-8 win over Wheaton College (Mass.) Tuesday afternoon in Clermont, Fla.
With the win, the Ducks improve to 3-2 overall, while the Lyons drop to 2-1.
Stevens came out strong from the opening draw in this one, jumping out to a 4-0 lead before nine minutes had elapsed. An
Amanda Ingersoll (Baldwinsville, N.Y.) caused turnover resulted in a transition goal from junior midfielder
Kara Rafferty (Bayshore, N.Y.) to get the Ducks on the board, with Rafferty again, senior midfielder
Spencer Waybright (West Hartford, Conn.) and sophomore attack
Andrea Dragoni (Easton, Pa.) notching the other early-game markers.
Wheaton recorded back-to-back goals to trim the Duck lead in half with 19:07 remaining in the first period, and the two teams traded goals over the next 10-plus minutes to have the score showing 6-4 at the 8:02 mark.
The Ducks ended the first period, exactly how they started, scoring four times of a span of 3:04 to open a 10-4 margin. Waybright started the run with an assist going to sophomore
Caitlyn Hughes (Randolph, N.J.), and freshman
Mackenzie Swartout (Rochester, N.Y.) followed with Hughes pocketing another helper. Hughes’ came through with an assist on her third-straight goal, again finding Waybright, to get Stevens’ lead to five, with senior midfielder
Joey Galligan (Burlingame, Calif.) finding the back of the net to close out the first-half scoring and send Stevens into the locker room with a 10-4 lead.
Wheaton opened the scoring in the second, but the Ducks quickly pushed their lead back to six when Galligan fed Rafferty for her fourth score of the game. Rafferty fed Waybright to make it 12-5 at the 18-minute mark, Waybright assisted Dragoni’s second goal of the afternoon to bring the lead to eight, and the two teams traded a tallies the rest of the way, eventually settling on a 16-8 final.
Stevens will return to the Northeast for a non-conference at 10th-ranked York College (Pa.) on March 16 at 1 p.m.