Box Score
Williamsport, PA — Ask Messiah head coach Heather Greer what she believed was the key to Tuesday's 19-11 win at MAC Conference foe Lycoming College, and a direct answer follows.
“The third quarter,” Greer says. “That may have been our best 15-minute stretch of the season.”
And while women's lacrosse games are divided up into halves on the scoreboard, there was no questioning the Falcons' dominance in the time surrounding the intermission, as Messiah turned a 5-6 deficit into a 15-6 lead — earning its third straight win as a result.
“Lyco is usually a scrappy and physical team so we knew we would need to be very aggressive to come out on top today,” Greer said. “Fortunately, we did that right after halftime.”
The host Warriors made it a point to come out strong, scoring less than two minutes in. Freshman Cecilia Kjellman knotted the game on an unassisted goal less than three minutes later, but again it was Lycoming with an answer, taking a 2-1 lead with 22:42 to go in the first period off a score from their own Sammi Jo Bell.
Greer's club then attempted to throw a knock-out punch, but a gritty Lycoming team would not go down easily. Sophomore Rachel Dirksen scored two of the game's next four goals — classmates Deb Tam and Meghan Doolittle provided the others — as the Falcons roared back to claim a 5-2 lead with just over 20 minutes to go in the first period.
Again, however, Lycoming (4-6, 3-3) responded.
A 4-0 push from the hosts dictated the game's next nine minutes, as the Warriors' Megan McIntyre assisted teammates Amanda Baker and Paige Botti at the half's 11:05 and 10:44 marks, putting the hosts up by a 6-5 score.
And while Greer said she was most pleased with her team's play at the start of the second half, Messiah (6-3, 4-1) actually got things rolling — on the scoreboard, anyway — at the conclusion of the first. Another four-goal push, this one anchored by a pair of scores from senior Nikki Lawrence, put the Falcons back on top by a 9-6 score at the intermission, setting the stage for a marvelous opening to the second frame. Dirksen scored three of Messiah's next six tallies, helping the team open up the aforementioned 15-6 advantage.
Dirksen assisted on another goal during the push, and senior Emily Van Hook joined sophomores Rachel Coyle and Jaime Gerhart with singular scores as well.
Greer said that play in the midfield led to the scoring outburst, as Messiah outshot Lycoming by a 38-23 margin on the afternoon.
“I'm not sure that I have never seen more hustle and more second efforts than I did during the first 15 minutes of the second half,” she said. “We made some mistakes but then made up for it through our hustle and desire to get the ball back. For example, (junior) Andrea(Thomas) made a huge effort to keep a ball inbounds when it would have been turned over. Another time, Ceal (Kjellman) chased down an overthrown ball to maintain possession. We played with heart and also executed our game plan really well for those 15 minutes. The hard part was not sustaining that kind of level of play throughout the whole game.”
Following that run, however, Lycoming found itself too far behind to make any sort of a comeback attempt. Messiah finished with an 18-13 advantage in draw controls, with Dirksen and Coyle each coming up with five.
Dirksen also posted five goals on the day, taking just six shots. Tam and junior Megan Bovenzi each scored three goals, while Lawrence finished with two.
For the second straight game, Messiah had at least 10 players score. The squad assisted nine of its total 19 markers.
“Any conference win is a good one, and we will go back to work tomorrow and keep working towards our goal of getting better on a daily basis,” Greer said.
Messiah will return to play Saturday, when the team hosts MAC rival King's College at Anderson Field. Game time is set for 1 p.m.
