RIVERDALE, N.Y. - The Manhattan women's lacrosse team scored the final seven goals of the contest and trailed by two with 2:22 remaining but could not pull even with the St. Joseph's Hawks as they fell 14-12 at Finnessey Field on Wednesday afternoon. The loss was the third straight for the Jaspers who fall to 2-5 on the season.
The Hawks jumped out to a 12-5 lead at halftime and scored the first two tallies in the second frame to jump out to a 14-5 advantage. However, the Jaspers would not give up reeling off seven in a row to try and close the deficit.
St. Joe's began the scoring when Carly Kindbom notched the first of her two goals of the game 3:36 into the contest. That started a stretch of three straight scores for the Hawks before Domenica O'Brey ripped a free position shot into the back of the net to get the Jaspers on the board. After a Grace Dinn goal for the Hawks, senior BrieAnna Spatarella scored on another free position shot to make the score 4-2 in favor of St. Joseph's.
Val Paolucci would then tickle twine twice in a row to push the advantage to four with 15:56 remaining in the first half. The Hawks would rattle off three more goals before Chrissy Gutenberger stopped the bleeding for the Jaspers cutting the deficit to 9-3 with 9:25 left until the break. St. Joseph's would score three of the next five goals in the first half to take a 12-5 lead into the break.
Out of the locker room, the Hawks tallied two quick goals as Meghan McDevitt scored 59 seconds into the half followed by Dinn's fifth of the contest to make it 14-5 St. Joseph's with 20:22 left in regulation. Manhattan would then begin their attempt at a comeback when Lauren Pribetich scored the first goal of her season. Gutenberger then added another before Clare Kerrisk found the back of the net to cut the lead to 14-8 with 16:47 remaining.
It would take five more minutes before the Jaspers scored again with Gutenberger notching her third of the contest. After a seven minute drought Donna Jo DiNorcia got on the board for the second time to get Manhattan within four. O'Brey and DiNorcia would get two more goals for the green and white to cut the lead to 14-12 with 2:22 to play.
As Manhattan continued to find an equalizer, St. Joseph's (4-3) goalkeeper Alisha Aquilino kept the Jaspers at bay with the help of her defense. Aquilino made 10 saves to earn the victory while Manhattan freshman Christina Fiorinelli stopped 11 shots, including 7 in the second half, to give her team hope of a comeback.
Each team came away with 26 total shots while the Jaspers corralled nine ground balls and the Hawks picked up 10. Manhattan won 17 of the 28 draw controls but turned the ball over 15 times and forced just 13 by St. Joe's. The biggest struggle for Manhattan was transitioning into offense. The Jaspers completed just 9 of 14 clear attempts. Meanwhile, the Hawks were 17-18 in their attempts.
Manhattan will return to the Philadelphia region in their next contest when they travel to Villanova on Sat., March 17 for a 7:00 p.m. tilt.
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