Lehigh University
St. Joseph's
Lehigh rings in Redfern era with 15-11 win at home
2/15/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Lacrosse
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BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Sophomore Lauren Dykstra scored five goals and senior Sara MacIntyre added four as Lehigh gave Jill Redfern a win in her first game as head coach with a 15-11 victory over St. Joseph’s on Sunday afternoon at the Ulrich Sports Complex. Freshman Kelly Draper found the back of the net twice and added an assist in her Mountain Hawks debut as Lehigh won its eighth consecutive season opener. Jenna Martino netted five goals for the visiting Hawks who fell to 0-1 following the loss.
Lehigh totaled 35 shots on the afternoon led by Dykstra’s 12, while sophomore Allison Thomas recorded a team best nine of Lehigh’s 35 ground balls. The Mountain Hawks won 13 draw controls and caused 12 turnovers. Kely Ferris finished with 14 saves in goal for Lehigh, while as a team the Mountain Hawks were three-of-six on free position shots.
St. Joseph’s was credited with 36 shots and picked up 40 ground balls, led by Julie Mineweaser’s seven. The Hawks caused 14 turnovers and went 10-of-14 in clear attempts. Hawks goal keeper Suzy Herlihy totaled 13 saves on the day, and as a team the visitors finished with 15 draw control wins.
“It’s always good to get that first game under your belt and to get the win is a nice bonus,” Redfern explained afterwards. “I think the second half was closer than it needed to be and we’ll have to address some of our weaker spots this week in practice, but we’ll take the win.” She continued, “I thought the freshmen did very well in their first game for us. That is a strong class overall and we’re expecting them to contribute right away. I thought Kelsy Ferris did a nice job for us in goal as well.”
Lehigh got off to a fast start scoring the game’s first five goals, including MacIntyre’s first score of the season just 27 seconds into the contest. Meagan Tenety and Dykstra also scored during the five-goal spree. The Hawks finally got on the board when Meghan McDevitt found the back of the net at the 14:31 mark of the opening half, but MacIntyre responded with her third goal of the game to make the score 6-1. The visitors netted back-to-back scores to slice the Lehigh lead in half, but the Mountain Hawks closed out the first 30 minutes with three goals to take a 9-3 lead into the halftime break.
MacIntyre opened the second half like she did the first, with yet another goal, and this one was historic, as it was the 125th of her career. Martino brought St. Joseph’s to within 10-4, but Draper scored on a free position shot to push Lehigh’s lead back to seven. Martino scored again, this time on a feed from Jen Peters, but Dykstra and Draper came back with scores for Lehigh, which made the score 13-5 with 20:20 on the clock.
It appeared as though Lehigh would cruise to victory from there, but the Hawks refused to go away, scoring four straight goals in a span of four minutes, as they closed to within 13-9 with 15:16 left in the game. Thomas restored order for the Mountain Hawks however as she scored her first goal of the season to push Lehigh’s lead to five. Dykstra then netted her fifth and final goal of the game to make the score 15-9 and Lehigh was on its way to an opening day victory.
Lehigh now has one week off before returning to action on Sunday, February 22 when the Mountain Hawks travel to Maryland to take on Mount St. Mary’s. The opening draw control is set for 1:00.
Watch the Lehigh - St. Joseph's Post-Game Extra
