Lehigh University
Fairfield
Lehigh can't complete comeback, falls to Fairfield
3/11/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Lacrosse
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BETHLEHEM, Pa. – After trailing by five goals at halftime Lehigh did all it could to get back into its game with Fairfield on Wednesday afternoon, but in the end the Stags outlasted the Mountain Hawks 10-7 at the Ulrich Sports Complex. Lehigh closed to within two goals with 9:26 remaining but could get no closer as the Brown and White falls to 2-3 following the setback. Sophomore Lauren Dykstra led the Mountain Hawks with a pair of goals, while five other Lehigh players scored once. Fairfield, which improves to 4-1 received three goals from both Rebecca White and Erin Rigby.
Lehigh unleashed 27 shots on the afternoon, led by Inneke Carmola with seven and Dykstra with six. Dykstra led the Mountain Hawks with six ground balls, while freshman Leigh Ann Torcivia had a nice game off the bench with three draw controls, four ground balls and a goal. Dykstra, Sarah Fudin and Anna Pierce all caused two turnovers, while in goal, junior Kelsy Ferris did her part to keep the Brown and White in the game with 13 saves.
White and Kristen Coleman led the Stags with seven shots apiece, while Alyssa Vecchione scooped up a team best five ground balls. Amy Kelleher caused three turnovers for Fairfield and Lauren Chatnik sent back 12 shots in goal for the visitors.
“I’m proud of the effort we gave today,” Lehigh head coach Jill Redfern said afterwards. “I thought we gave a much better effort that we did on Saturday (versus Bucknell), particularly in the second half. The girls fought hard to the end against a very good Fairfield team and now we’ll turn our attention to this weekend’s game at Lafayette.”
Lehigh’s offense got off to a slow start scoring just once in the opening half. That score came on a free position shot by senior Sara MacIntyre with 8:10 remaining before halftime. The Stags offense scored six times in the opening half and took a 6-1 lead into intermission.
Freshman Kelly Draper opened the second half scoring for Lehigh with a goal at the 28:30 mark to bring Lehigh within four, but Fairfield answered with two straight scores to put the visitors up by six. From there the Mountain Hawks offense began to show signs of life as Meghan Tranter scored her first goal of the season and Torcivia netted her second score of the season to make it an 8-4 game with 21:14 left in the contest.
Rigby momentarily stopped the Lehigh run with her 11th goal of the season which put the Stags up by five, 9-4. Dykstra scored on a free position shot to make the score 9-5 though, and the sophomore added a second score one minute later to bring Lehigh within three at 9-6. Carmola then scored her first goal of the day with 9:26 on the clock and Lehigh was within two. Rigby ended any hope of a Lehigh comeback however as she beat Ferris with 4:32 on the clock and the Stags held on for the win from there.
Lehigh returns to action on Saturday afternoon when the Mountain Hawks make the short trip to Easton to take on the Lafayette Leopards. The opening draw control is set for 4:00.
Watch the Lehigh - Fairfield Post-Game Extra
