The women’s lacrosse team lost to Rutgers on Saturday March 2, by the score of 11-8. The Hawks record falls to 0-4. The Scarlet Knights jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in the first 13 minutes of the game. Freshman MU midfielder Marial Pierce scored off an assist from junior midfielder, Kaleigh Gibbons, to make the score 3-1 shortly after.
Senior midfielder Sam Savona kept the momentum going by scoring and closing the gap on the Scarlet K nights lead. At the 13:34 mark of the first period, the blue and white would score on a free position shot from sophomore midfielder Allison Stathius to tie the game up at three.
Rutgers would again take the lead on another goal from Amanda Trandell. But, as time was expiring, the Hawks tied the game yet again when sophomore midfielder Karlee Dean scored on a free position shot. MU would start the second half off with Gibbons scoring forty seconds in to take a 5-4 lead.
The Scarlet Knights took a 7-5 lead after scoring three straight goals, including a pair from Megan Clements. Pierce would cut the deficit to one when she scored off of a pass from Gibbons with 17:46 left to play in the game.
Rutgers answered back again with two goals from Clements to increase their lead to three. G ibbons scored again with 8:14 left, but quickly after that, Trandell scored again. Gibbons and Trandell traded goals over the last four plus minutes as the Hawks fell 11- 8.
RU is now 11-0 all-time against the H awks. The turnovers were close as the Hawks had 14 and the Scarlet Knights had 12.
The Hawks lost to Lafayette on March 5 in a thriller by the score of 16-15. The Hawks record fell to 0-5. B oth teams battled back and forth throughout the game, especially in the first half.
The first half saw three lead changes and eight ties. Gibbons and the Hawks wasted little time to take the early lead 1-0 just fifty-six seconds into the game. At the 26:05 mark, Lafayette scored to tie the game. However, senior attacker, Cassie Campasano scored to give the Hawks the lead.
Lafayette’s Carlianne McCabe tallied a pair of goals to take the lead for the Leopards. The Leopards fought to take the lead all first half, but the Hawks always answered right back.
The second half began with an 8-8 tie until McCabe scored back-to-back goals to take a 10-8 lead over MU at the 25:40 mark. The blue and white battled back and tied the game at 13 when sophomore midfielder Emily Barbieri scored a pair of goals. MU pulled goalie Katie Donohoe who allowed 13 goals in 45 minutes. Freshman goalie Caroline Huelster would get the nod in her first career action.
Lafayette’s Ana White and Hawk Allison Stathius traded goals until the 6:38 mark when Addie Godfrey scored her 28th goal of the season for the Leopards. Jessica Rothstein would score the eventual game winner on a free position shot.
MU outshot the Leopards 33- 24, but the goalies for Lafayette would combine for nine saves to just four for the Hawks.
On Saturday at Kessler Field, the Hawks won their first game of the season by topping Siena 12-5. The blue and white now post a 1-5 record on the season.
The first half would start off scoreless until the 13:11 mark when Pierce scored to give the Hawks the lead. A little over a minute later, she would score again for a 2-0 lead.
Gibbons and Meaghan Hess combined for four goals as MU went up 6-0. Lauren Smith broke the run at the 4:08 when she scored to finally put Siena on the board. But Hess, who had a career day, tallied her third goal of the game. The blue and white had a commanding 7-1 lead going into halftime.
Stathius scored the first goal of the second half, but back-to-back goals by Katie Maguire and Alyssa Treanor would cut the Hawks lead to 8-3 with 24:24 to play. Gibbons answered back just twenty nine seconds later scoring her third goal of the game.
Gibbons said, “Our attack is definitely working really well together on and off the ball. A lot of it is that we are using our strengths and we know our weaknesses, and we’re utilizing what we have.”
The Hawks would outscore Siena late in the second half 3-1 with goals from Hess, Pierce, and freshman midfielder Michelle Gonzales. The final goal o f t he game was scored by Siena’s Maguire at the 1:48 mark, making the score 12-5.
Head Coach Denise Wescott said, “We felt like we needed to take advantage of some of the things we were doing well and I thought we did that today. We did three things really well, our defense took away the things we saw them do on film. We did a nice job of really finding their weaknesses defensively and allowing some of our other players to step up because we knew we could pick on their weaknesses. We were very selfless today.”
The Hawks return to action on Wednesday, March 13 as they host Saint Joe’s at 3:00 pm.
PHOTO COURTESY of MU Photography
