By Ronald Hanaki
Sports Editor
On Wednesday, ESU’s women’s lacrosse team bounced back from a three-game losing streak to beat the Dominican College Chargers 20-13 in a non-conference game at Torne Valley Sports Complex.
Following the team’s three-game losing streak, ESU junior attack and co-captain Kaitlynn Wiltraut said, “I’m a little disappointed right now.”
Wiltraut continued, “We’re just trying to figure things out. Everyone has to take responsibility. We have to get better.”
Clearly, things got a lot better for ESU. In the game against Dominican, the rejuvenated Warriors were led by sophomore attack Lauren Green. She scored 6 goals and had 3 assists in posting a career-high 9 points. Earlier in the season, Lauren Nunes also notched 9 points against Millersville.
The resolute Wiltraut led by example and scored 5 goals and had 1 assist. Junior attack Lauren Nunes contributed a hat trick and 3 assists.
Despite the final score, this was a tightly contested game in the first half. The Chargers scored the first two goals of the game, but the Warriors answered with two goals of their own.
Dominican would score the next four out of five goals, but the Warriors would match the Chargers and even the score at 6-6 with 7 minutes left in the first half.
Dominican senior midfielder Gina Sparaco’s first goal would put Dominican ahead, 7-6.
ESU’s Green would score a pair of goals before intermission to enable the Warriors to claim their first lead, 8-7.
Following intermission, Dominican junior attack / midfielder Amber June would find the back of the net to square the game again, 8-8.
ESU redshirt sophomore midfielder Jamie Zimmer and Nunes would answer with a pair of goals to make it 10-8 ESU.
With 22:59 left in the second half, Dominican’s Sparaco netted her second goal of the game to make the score 10-9 ESU. It was Sparaco’s 100th goal of her career. Sparaco would finish the game with three goals.
The Chargers would claw back and even the score at 11, but the Warriors went on a 9-2 run to close out the game with a much-needed win.
Sophomore Emily Fitzsimmons started in goal in place of injured starting goalkeeper Jessica Maxwell. Fitzsimmons only had to make 4 saves as the Warriors outshot the Chargers 48-21.
However, Dominican was 5-5 with their free position shots. Comparatively, ESU went 0-4 with their free position shots.
ESU had a 21-17 edge in ground balls over Dominican, and Dominican committed 31 fouls to only 18 fouls for ESU.
The revitalized Warriors (5-3, 1-3) will return to Whitenight Field to play IUP in a PSAC game on Saturday, April 4 at 3:00 PM.
Email Ronald at:
rhanaki@live.esu.edu