Lehigh University
American
Lehigh downs Eagles; locks up No. 2 seed
4/21/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Lacrosse
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“Meghan Tranter had a very big game for us, scoring the game-winner down there,” head coach Liz Ota said afterwards as she leads Lehigh into the postseason for the second time in the last three seasons. “This was just a great full team effort, I thought Heather McArthur played well, everyone did a really nice job out there. Kelsy (Ferris) had a phenomenal game and kept us in the hunt with some of her saves.” She concluded, “I think we were a bit upset that weren’t able to win it in regulation, but it was a good experience to play an overtime game and a great win for our young team to pull it out in overtime.”
Lehigh was out shot by the Eagles 31-23 for the game, but scooped up 27 ground balls, led by Seana Smith’s seven and Lissy King’s five. American was led in ground balls by
American jumped on top 1-0 when Lauren Aksionoff scored an unassisted goal at the 26:01 mark of the opening quarter. Carmola tied the game at one with her 40th score of the season 46 seconds later and Tess McGrath put the Mountain Hawks in front 2-1 when she scored with 12:13 left in the quarter. Lehigh went in front 3-1 off of a score from MacIntyre on a free position shot, but Caithlin Gorman brought the Eagles back to within one with a score of her own on a free position shot at the 7:49 clip.
Carmola opened the second half with her third goal of the night before Brittany Finnegan put the Eagles in front 6-5 with 20:45 left in the contest. McArthur, Tranter and MacIntyre netted three straight goals for the Brown and White to put the home team in front 8-6 with 13:27 remaining in the game. The Eagles clawed to within one score on Lane’s goal with 12:29 to go, but Christy Smith put the Mountain Hawks back up two with 10:29 left on the clock. With one minute remaining it appeared as though Lehigh was headed for the winner’s circle, but Caitlin Bell scored with 42 seconds left, and Lane found the back of the net with only 16 ticks left sending the teams for overtime.
In the first overtime period, neither team was able to score, despite having several chances. In the second extra frame Lehigh aggressively attacked the goal, and Tranter came up with the ball off of a saved shot, before depositing it in the back of the net to send Lehigh into the postseason.
Lehigh has one final regular season game remaining when the Mountain Hawks take on St. Joe’s on Tuesday afternoon on Senior Day at the Ulrich Sports Complex. Game time is set for 4:00.
