Utica, Stevens and St. John Fisher Cruise
Utica 16, Hartwick 9
The Utica College women's lacrosse team defeated visiting Hartwick College 16-9 in Empire 8 Conference action on the turf at Charles A. Gaetano Stadium Saturday afternoon. Three different players scored at least five points for the Pioneers, including leading scorer
Megan Kane (Staten Island, NY/Tottenville), who tied her career-high with five goals. Sophomore
Courtney Wheeler (Ava, NY/Rome Free Academy) scored a career-high six points (five goals, one assist) and junior
Morgan DuPont (Wynantskill, NY/Averill Park) tied the school-record with a career-high five assists for the second consecutive day. DuPont finished with a season-high seven points (two goals, five assists).
Utica has now won five of its last six games and improved to 5-2 overall, while evening its record at 1-1 in conference play. The Hawks dropped to 4-7 on the year and 0-3 in the conference.
DuPont now ranks second on the College's all-time list with 51 career assists. She is just six shy of Tammy Kohanski's '11 school-record of 57 career assists. DuPont's 21 assists this season leads the conference and she now needs one more assist this year to set a new program-record for assists in a single season.
Megan Kane (Staten Island, NY/Tottenville)'s 79 career goals rank ninth on the College's all-time list.
The Pioneers jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead in the first 7:38 of the contest behind three goals from Wheeler and one each from
Megan Kane (Staten Island, NY/Tottenville) and
Colleen Dowling (Fairport, NY/Fairport). Wheeler's three goals were consecutive and came just 1:22 apart. Four of Wheeler's five goals on the afternoon came off of free position shots.
Both teams netted four goals apiece in the final 17:33 of the first half and the Pioneers held a 9-4 advantage as the halftime horn sounded.
The Pioneers basically put the game away with the first five goals of the second half in a span of 7:45.
Megan Kane (Staten Island, NY/Tottenville) and freshman
Rebecca Plunkett (Kings Park, NY/Kings Park) each netted two goals in the early second half spurt, while Wheeler snuck in her tenth of the season in the span as well.
Hartwick put a scare in the Pioneers by scoring five of the game's next six goals to cut Utica's ten goal lead to 15-9 with 2:53 left in the contest. However, it proved to be too late as UC netted the game's final tally with 1:21 left to give the Pioneers a seven goal victory.
Lauren Rosenberg led the Hawks with four goals on the afternoon, while Whitesboro, NY native Emily Jweid added two goals and two assists.
Stevens 12, Elmira 5
The Stevens Institute of Technology women's lacrosse team won its third-straight road game Saturday, defeating Elmira College by a 12-5 final at the Elmira Free Academy.
The Ducks are now 5-5 overall and 3-0 in the Empire 8. Elmira drops to 4-5 overall and 1-2 in the conference.
Stevens was led by four points from senior attack
Kara Rafferty (Bayshore, N.Y.), junior attack
Caitlyn Hughes (Randolph, N.J.) and sophomore midfielder
Erika Wilcox(Baldwinsville, N.Y.). Hughes tallied three goals and an assist as well as two caused turnovers, Rafferty had one score and three helpers, and Wilcox finished with three goals, one assist, four ground balls, two draw controls and two caused turnovers. Freshman midfielder
Kathleen Kalbian (Cheshire, Conn.) rang the bell three times, adding four draw controls and five ground balls to her line. Junior defender
Courtney Lee (Brookeville, Md.) had three ground balls, two caused turnovers and a draw control, while sophomore attack
Jaimie Mastrogiacomo (Whitehouse Station, N.J.) picked up a pair of helpers. Freshman midfielder
Mariel Haubrich (Ocean City, N.J.) had three draw controls, while rookie defender
Betsy Crossland (Westfield, N.J.) had a pair of caused turnovers. Freshman attack
Laura Roberts (West Hartford, Conn.) notched a goal and an assist, and freshman midfielder Carolin DeLuca (Sayville, N.Y.) picked up a goal and a draw control.
Freshman
Janelle Welkie (Hershey, Pa.) picked up the win in goal for Stevens, making five stops in 60 minutes.
Roberts put away a Rafferty feed 7:15 into the game to get the scoring started, and after the Soaring Eagles tied the game at one, the Ducks took the lead for good. Rafferty tallied and 2:17 later Wilcox got on the board. Elmira fought within one at 3-2, but Stevens ended the half with a trio of tallies from Hughes (11:47), Kalbian (6:49) and DeLuca with just one second to play.
Kalbian's second started the second-half scoring, and following junior Ashton Hogan's (Shelbourne, Ontario) third of the game made it 7-3, two Hughes markers just 1:49 apart pushed the lead to six goals with 19:29 left.
The Soaring Eagles were able to get within five at 14:02, but Kalbian put away a Hughes pass and Wilcox put home another Rafferty assist to make it 11-4. Hogan scored her fourth for Elmira before Rafferty found Wilcox for her third goal of the game to finish the scoring with 6:55 left.
The Ducks put 21 of their 27 shots on goal, and Elmira took 15 shots overall. Stevens held a 20-14 margin in ground balls, and also won 12-of-18 draws.
St. John Fisher 13, Nazareth 4
St. John Fisher College's
Taylor Hughes became the women's lacrosse program's all-time leader in points on Saturday, as the senior helped lift the nationally-ranked Cardinals to a 13-4 win over Nazareth College in an Empire 8 Conference matchup.
Hughes tallied one goal and three assists, bringing her career point total to 270, breaking the old mark of 267, set last spring by All-American Melissa Leonard. Hughes (188 goals, 82 assists) needs just five goals and one more assist to become the College's all-time leader in those two categories as well.
Hughes registered two points during her team's 7-0 run over the game's opening 12:17, and the No. 14 Cardinals never looked back.
Fisher (7-2 overall, 2-1 Empire 8) finished the game with a decisive advantage in shots (31-12) and forced the Golden Flyers (3-5, 0-1) into 19 turnovers, while committing just 10.
Samantha Barton led Fisher with five points on four goals and one assist. She also tallied a team-high four draw controls.
Erin Ward and
Sierra Badger both tallied three points on one goal and two assists.
Lindsey Shoales and
Emily Bryerton both scored two goals, while
Jordan Johnson registered two points on a goal and an assist.
Marykate Edmunds led the Fisher defense with three caused turnovers.
Caroline Trpcevski and
Nicole Hart both played one half in net.