The AU lacrosse team’s season came to a sudden end on Saturday with a 16-11 loss in a do-or-die game at the College of the Holy Cross.
With a win, the Eagles would have advanced to the Patriot League tournament and proved that they have bounced back from a three-win season a year ago. But the Eagles fell short against the Crusaders.
AU’s Paige Lin paced the team with a career best five points with four goals and an assist. Emily Stankiewicz added three goals of her own for the Eagles and Amanda Makoid netted two in the team’s final game.
Holy Cross came out strong and jumped to an early 6-1 lead with 17:51 remaining in the first half. Lin cut the lead with a goal off of a free position shot at 17:10 to make the score 6-2.
The Crusaders netted another before the Eagles fought back with three straight goals by Stankiewicz, Makoid and Lin to close the gap to 7-5. However, that was as close as the Eagles would get to victory.
The Crusaders scored five of the next seven goals to close out the first half, including a goal with just one second remaining in the half, to take a 12-7 lead. The two AU goals came from Makoid and Eliza Morgan.
“They came out hard on us, and I don’t think we expected that,” sophomore midfielder Bernadette Maher said. “We were struggling all game to come back.”
Holy Cross expanded their lead in the second half, scoring the first two goals out of the intermission to stretch their lead to 14-7 with 17:31 remaining. AU scored the next four goals thanks to two goals off the stick of Stankiewicz and one each from both Lin and Chiara Speziale to close the score to within four, 15-11 with 5:05 remaining.
Despite three shots on goal, the Eagles were shutout for the remainder of the game.
“We took a lot of shots at the end of the game but had a hard time putting the ball away,” Maher said.
Holy Cross’s Katie Gardner scored the game’s final goal with 1:07 remaining, bringing the final tally to 16-11 in favor of Holy Cross.
The Eagles finished the season 6-10 overall and 3-3 in the Patriot League. Their league record ties them with Holy Cross on the season, but the head-to-head loss prevents the Eagles from advancing to the Patriot League tournament.
“Even though [the season] didn’t turn out the best,” sophomore defender Emma Larkin said, “this was everyone’s favorite team to be a part of.”
You can reach this writer at sports@theeagleonline.com.
