Lehigh University
Colgate
Lehigh downs Colgate for first time since 1997
4/6/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Lacrosse
 |
“Inneke played an outstanding game for us,” head coach Liz Ota expressed afterwards. “It was great to have Sara MacIntyre back, she gives us the ability to vary our offense and really made a difference tonight. I thought we made a great comeback and down the stretch we felt as though the clock was our friend, so we went into our stall offense. Unfortunately we caused our own turnovers, but we needed to slow the game down at that point because of the pace Colgate had us playing.”
She continued, “We were able to pull it together fortunately down the stretch and break this ten-year streak against them. Give Colgate credit though, they played a tough game and really pressured us. But this was a huge team effort and an enormous win. We weren’t as sharp as we could have been, so that makes this such a good win to pull it out.”
The first half was an offensive showdown, as the teams combined for 16 goals and went into halftime tied at eight. Jess Van der Meulen got the scoring underway with a goal at the 27:47 mark of the half, and Lindsay Pittard added back-to-back scores in a matter of 1:26 to put the visitors ahead 3-0 with 25:09 left in the opening half. MacIntyre put the Mountain Hawks on the board for the first time when she scored off of an assist from Vienna Pharaon at the 22:14 mark, but Ashley Didio put the Raiders back up three with her 25th score of the season at the 18:36 clip.
Carmola and Tess McGrath scored the game’s next two goals to bring Lehigh to within one at 4-3 with 11:42 left on the clock, but Pittard and Didio scored two more times to push Colgate’s lead up to three at 6-3. Amy Chamberlain cut the deficit to two for Lehigh with a goal off of a feed from MacIntyre, and MacIntyre then netted another score of her own to bring the Mountain Hawks to within one, at 6-5 with 8:51 left. Brie Moran scored her second goal of the season with 8:16 remaining, but Carmola scored her 26th goal of the season to bring Lehigh to within one once again at 7-6. Didio netted Colgate’s final score of the half with 6:32 to go, but Lehigh got two straight goals from Carmola in the final 2:37 to tie the game.
Tara Casey opened the second half with a goal to put the visitors up one, but from there, Lehigh unleashed an offensive fury, scoring the game’s next six goals to go in front 14-9 with 19:30 left in the game. MacIntyre, Pharaon, Lissy King, and Christy Smith each scored once, while Carmola netted two scores during the 6-0 run. Moran stopped the Lehigh run with a goal at the 17:57 mark, but Carmola netted goal number-31 on the season with 15:17 left to make the score 15-10. The Mountain Hawks then went into a stall offense, but Colgate was able to force several turnovers and capitalize, scoring four straight goals, one each from Didio and Casey and two from Moran to close to within one at 15-14 with just 2:34 left on the clock. Christy Smith netted an open-net goal with 31 seconds left to seal the win though, and Lehigh earned its first win over the Raiders since 1997.
Lehigh unleashed 25 shots on the evening and scooped up 27 ground balls, led by Carmola’s seven and MacIntyre’s five. The Mountain Hawks forced 17 Raider turnovers and were 13-of-17 on clear attempts. Both teams were strong on free position shots, with Lehigh scoring on four-of-six attempts, and the Raiders scoring on four-of-five tries. In goal for the Brown and White, Kelsy Ferris got the start and sent back eight Raider shots, while Kaitlin Dean played eight minutes and recorded two saves. For Colgate, Sara Drexler got the start and stopped three Lehigh shots, while Amanda Gurin sent back four Mountain Hawk shots in 27 minutes of action.
Lehigh returns to action on Tuesday when the Mountain Hawks travel to take on the Villanova Wildcats. Game time is set for 8:00.
