WASHINGTON – Lehigh’s season came to an end on Friday afternoon as the Mountain Hawks fell to Lafayette 2-0 in the Patriot League semifinals at American’s William I. Jacobs Recreational Complex. The Leopards scored a pair of first half goals and became the first team to keep Lehigh off the scoreboard in a game this season. Lafayette (9-10) advances to Saturday’s championship game, while Lehigh’s season comes to an end at 8-10.
Lafayette scored the game’s first goal 2:48 into the first half as Kelly Hilovsky tapped in Maggie Condon’s centering pass for her second goal of the season. The Leopards added a second goal with five and a half minutes to play in the half, as Jaclyn DiSanti found Condon open in the center of the scoring circle after a penalty corner. Condon beat freshman Jessica Miller for her tenth goal of the season to make it 2-0 at halftime.
In the second half, the second seeded Mountain Hawks kept the pressure on, but could not produce enough quality chances. Lehigh out shot Lafayette 8-2 after halftime and had the only six penalty corners of the second half. The Mountain Hawks caught a break when Condon was awarded a penalty stroke, and her subsequent shot hit the left post, but the Brown and White were unable to solve Lafayette freshman Kelsey Andersen, who finished with seven saves.
“It’s frustrating because we worked so hard to get to this point,” said Lehigh head coach Julie Mazer. “Today, we didn’t make the smart decisions when we needed to. I’m proud of how we were picked to finish sixth in the preseason but worked to finish second and get to this point. We’re just frustrated with the how things ended up.
For the game Lehigh out shot Lafayette 12-8 and had 10 penalty corners to the Leopards’ four. Jessica Miller made three saves in the goal cage for the Mountain Hawks. Senior Christy Smith, junior Kalynn Davies and sophomore Kelly Fox each registered a pair of shots on goal for Lehigh.
Lafayette will face host and top seed American in the Patriot League championship game, Saturday at 1 p.m.