Gators drop heartbreaker to Green Mountain, 13-11
Poultney, VT – Green Mountain College received a dominant performance from junior midfielder Bryanna Astor (Milltown, NJ) as her six goals and assist helped the women's lacrosse team edge past The Sages Colleges on Thursday afternoon in non-conference play. The win improves the Eagles record to 2-3 overall, while the loss sends the Gators to 1-8 on the season.
With only 17 seconds having elapsed in the game, sophomore midfielder Johanna Douglas (Essex, CT) tickled the twine to open the scoring. Astor would notch her first of the game less than a minute later on a free position shot to push the lead to 2-0 for the Eagles.
Senior middie Ginelle Butler (Malta, NY) would respond for the Gators with a free position goal of her own to get the visitors on the board. Fellow midfielder Emily Stevenson (Ithaca, NY) would tie the score 2-2 with a goal at the 23:00 minute mark of the first on a nice feed from Butler.
The rest of the half from that point on was a cat-and-mouse affair as Green Mountain would gain the momentum with a couple goals, only to have Sage respond with a few markers of its own. By the end of the half GMC had established a narrow 8-5 lead.
The same back-and-forth game continued into the second half with both teams trading goals. The Gators would narrow the score at 10-9 when junior midfielder Alexa Veeder (Earlton, NY) connected on a goal directly off of an Alayna Kaiser (Ballston, NY) draw control.
The Eagles would then go on a 3-0 run within the next three minutes to take a 13-9 advantage with Astor potting two more. Sage was forced to take a timeout to regroup and it seemed to work as the Gators stormed right back with two unanswered goals to reduce the deficit to 13-11 with over seven minutes still left to play.
The Eagles seemed to make a concerted effort to clog the middle of the field, making it difficult for Sage to advance the ball and the strategy paid off as the Gators were unable to manage another shot on goal, leaving the final score at 13-11 for the Eagles.
In addition to her seven points, Astor also picked up five groundballs on the day. Douglas supported the Eagles' offense with three goals and three assists while fighting for eight ground balls and winning an impressive 17 draw controls.
The Gators were led by the offensive contributions of Veeder, Butler and Stevenson. Veeder led the Gators with four goals and four ground balls, while Butler and Stevenson each netted two goals each. Butler would add two assists to her tallies, while Stevenson also was credited with four ground balls in the match.
Virginia Anderson (Silver Spring, MD) was sharp in net for the Eagles stopping seven shots en route to the victory. Courtney Reed (Mechanicville, NY) and Butler both played in goal as Reed had four saves and Butler made three in split time in net for the Gators.
The Eagles will return to North Atlantic Conference East play on Saturday, April 7th, as the team travels to Maine to take on Husson University in a match-up scheduled to start at 1:00 p.m. The Gators will be back at home on Wednesday, April 11th, when they host Skyline Conference opponent Kean University in a match-up slated for 7:00 p.m.