Women’s Lacrosse finished the regular season by winning their final two games, rolling past Manhattan, 19-5, on Wednesday at Kessler Stadium and defeating Quinnipiac by a score of 19-12 on Saturday on the road in Connecticut.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Hawks dominated their Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) opponent Manhattan in an important game to determine the order of the standings.
It took only 51 seconds into the game for Manhattan to put up the first points.
They then got out to a 2-1 lead with 27:33 remaining in the first half.
Monmouth started to run away with the game as they scored eight unanswered goals, including four from junior attacker Allison Turturro.
She finished the game with eight total goals, tying her personal best and a school record.
Turturro combined with sophomore attacker Caroline Bleck for the first five Monmouth goals of the second half, making the score 14-4 with just 18:53 left in the contest, proving to be too much of a deficit for Manhattan to overcome.
“We are in championship play right now, every game including regular season games are championship mentality,” said Head Coach Jordan Trautman. “We talked about every game from here on out are ‘do or die’. I’ve always wanted to be part of a program that is peaking at the right time and I’m confident we are doing that.”
The Blue and White put up an impressive performance as they were able to score 19 goals, which is the most they have scored in a game since the 2013 season.
They already had the highest scoring average in the MAAC at 13.0 goals per game, and with Wednesday’s effort, it continued to improve.
Junior attacker Nicole Ceraso made program history during the Hawks’ game against Manhattan as she broke the career assists record, a record that has stood since 2000. She broke the record in style as she totaled seven assists, which is a single-game career high for Ceraso.
“It is amazing, anytime you can coach someone to a record you know that she’s doing the right thing and we are doing the right thing as a coaching staff,” Trautman said.
The Hawks were able to follow up their dominant performance with another impressive win on the road against Quinnipiac on Saturday to finish off the 2019 regular season and earn the No. 2 seed in the MAAC Tournament.
Monmouth dominated the first half of the game as they only allowed eight shots on goal, which helped secure them an 11-4 lead by the end of the first half.
During the first 30 minutes of play, six different Hawks scored, including hat tricks from Ceraso and junior midfielder Rachel Mills.
Quinnipiac started strong in the second half by scoring four of the next five goals and cutting the lead to 12-8.
In the next nine minutes, Monmouth went on an offensive tear as they scored six of the next seven goals of the game giving them an 18-9 lead, which was enough to put the game away.
“I am so proud of what our girls did today and what we’ve accomplished in the regular season,” said Trautman. “We are playing our best lacrosse right now, and we will have a lot of lacrosse left to play if we keep showing up the way we have the last three weeks.”
Ceraso led the way with a total of seven points, tallying on four goals and three assists en route to being named MAAC Offensive Player of the Week.
Senior attacker Jenny Staines also had herself a four-goal day.
Junior midfielder Megan Hart padded on to the single-season draw control record by adding six draws in Saturday’s contest.
She also added two caused turnovers and two ground balls to her total.
Senior goalkeeper Riley Brager earned MAAC Defensive Player of the Week recognition after making 17 saves across both of Monmouth’s wins.
The Hawks finished the regular season with an overall record of 12-5 and a conference record of 6-2, earning themselves a bye in the first round of the playoffs.
They will play in the semifinal of the MAAC Tournament on May 2 in Fairfield, CT. at a time to be announced later.
PHOTO TAKEN by Karlee Sell
