Box Score PAINESVILLE, Ohio – The
Lake Erie women's lacrosse team staked a 25-20 win over
Queens College (N.Y.) in the first home and East Coast Conference
match in school history on Saturday (March 27) afternoon at Alumni
Stadium in Perry, Ohio. The win was Lake Erie's third
straight.
Freshman attacker Julia Kudla
(Harleysville, Pa./Souderton) set a season-high in the
East Coast Conference with 10 points in the game, scoring six goals
and adding a game-high four assists. Freshman midfielder
Meredith Howe (Fayetteville, N.Y./Jamesville
Dewilt) had seven goals to lead the Storm in that
category. Freshman midfielder Brittany Rabuano (Auburn,
N.Y./Auburn) also had six goals for Lake
Erie.
Freshman keeper Brittanie Johnson
(Hilliard, Ohio/Darby) made 16 saves, just one off the ECC
high for the season.
The 45 goals scored in the game far exceed the
previous season-high in the ECC (34), which was set in a game
between Dominican and Queens.
The Storm (3-1, 1-0 ECC) fell behind early to
the Knights (1-4, 0-1 ECC), who scored the first four goals of the
game, all in the first three minutes. Lake Erie bounced back,
though, scoring the next six goals to take a 6-4 lead.
Lake Erie made it 8-5 with goals by freshman
attacker Kim Dang (Atlanta, Ga./Jackson) and
Kudla. After Queens attacker Heather Rosen – who had a
game-high eight goals – scored to cut the Lake Erie lead to
two, the Storm rattled off five straight goals to take a 13-6 lead
with 1:43 left in the first half.
But Queens stole the momentum heading into
halftime, scoring the last two goals going into the intermission to
cut the Storm lead to 13-8. Queens scored three of the first goals
coming out of halftime, including two by Nicole Foy to make it
14-11.
Howe took over at that point, scoring three of
her five second-half goals in a row to take a 17-11 lead. The teams
alternated goals over the next 10 minutes and Lake Erie led 21-16
with 10 minutes to play.
Queens scored three straight goals to cut the
Storm lead to 21-19, while fighting off Lake Erie's attempt
to speed up the game in its own offensive end. But Lake Erie closed
out the game in the last three minutes after Queens' Janine
Guerra picked up a yellow card and the Storm scored a power-play
goal to start a 4-1 run that ended the game.
The teams tied in shots at 43-43, but Lake Erie
won the battle for possessions, controlling 27 of 47 faceoffs and
picking up 11 groundballs compared to seven for the Knights.
The Storm will have 12 days off before returning to the pitch at
Slippery Rock on April 8.
