The AU women’s lacrosse team was able to fight off a surging Lafayette Leopards team by a score of 10-9 on Saturday in Easton, Pa. The win snaps a two-game losing streak for the Eagles.
Junior Lauren Schoenberger led the team as she picked up three goals in the contest. She now has 23 points this season with 12 goals and 11 assists. Junior Bernadette Maher also had a good game, recording two goals, four draw controls, two ground balls and two caused turnovers. She leads AU in goals with 25 on the season. In total, seven players scored in the win and junior Kaska Komosinski made seven stops in goal.
Sophomore Samantha Marshall scored the first goal about four minutes into the game. She is in a tie with Maher for second on the team with 27 points this season. Lafayette then started to rally and took an early 3-2 lead. Schoenberger followed that up by leading the Eagles to a 4-0 run with back-to-back goals, both off passes by sophomore Kimberly Collins, the Eagles’ points leader on the season, to give AU a 6-3 lead.
Collins picked up a goal of her own in the run, as did sophomore Chiara Speziale. The Leopards scored a goal to make the score 6-4, but a goal by Maher increased AU’s lead to 7-4 before heading into halftime.
Maher and sophomore Eliza Morgan began the second half with goals to extend the Eagles’ lead to 9-5. But two consecutive goals by Lafayette cut the lead to 9-7 with 13:07 to go. Lisa Schaaf answered back with a goal to make it a 10-7 game. Two more Leopard goals made the score 10-9 with 2:38 left, but that score would not change as the Eagles tightened up their defense and forced a turnover with 33 seconds left in the game.
Lafayette had a chance to score when the Eagles turned the ball over with eight seconds to go, but it was too little, too late for the Leopards, and they did not have enough time to score.
AU clearly outplayed Lafayette in this one as they led in shots, ground balls and caused turnovers.
The win puts the Eagles at 7-6 on the season and 3-2 versus Patriot League opponents. AU takes on Navy at Jacobs Field on Wednesday, April 13 at 4:00 p.m.
Lafayette’s loss was just another in a line of many as the Leopards have struggled mightily this season. Saturday’s loss dropped their record to 2-10 overall and 1-4 in Patriot League play. They beat Bucknell 13-11 last Saturday to pick up their first conference win, but before that had lost six straight games.
blasky@theeagleonline.com
