Box Score BRISTOL, R.I. – The Roger Williams Women's Lacrosse bewilders the #1 seeded Golden Bears of Western New England 19-11 in the Commonwealth Coast Conference Championship Tournament. The Hawks improve to 11-7 and advance to the finals to take on Endicott College while WNE drops their first game of the season with an overall record of 17-1.
The Hawks built an early three goal lead in the opening period begin with a successful free position attempt by Jessica Searl (Glastonbury, Conn.) at 29:25. At 20:42 Makenzie Logan (Vernon, N.J.) finished a Deven Machette (Norwalk, Conn.) pass to put the Hawks up by two. Samantha Davenport (Bethel, Conn.) connected with Kelsey Rahilly (E. Longmeadow, Mass.) at 20:22 for the third unanswered goal.
> >Kaitlynn Stevens (Stratford, Conn.) kept WNE in the game by scoring the next two goals with the first coming on a free position attempt at 18:16. She then took advantage of a RWU yellow card that gave the Bears a successful player up goal at 16:46. > font-family: verdana;">RWU matched the WNE with a two goal run of their own that returned the momentum to the Hawks when Searl scored her second at 15:05 followed by a free position shot by Machette that rebuilt the lead to 5-2 with 14:53 to play in the first half.WNE's Taylor Scaildone (Yorktown Heights, N.Y.) cut the lead back to two at 11:36 on a well placed free position attempt.
The Hawks remained on task with Rahilly having a part in the next three goals finding Searl at 9:39 for the finish, Davenport at 7:47, and marking one of her own on a pass from Logan at 5:42 that gave the Hawks their largest lead of the first half.
WNE would close out the first half scoring on a Kelsey Sherman (Buchanan, N.Y.) free position attempt at 3:57 and Stevens dishing to Scialdone at 1:31 to bring the score to 5-8 going into the break.
RWU opened the scoring in the second period on a Kristen Pingree (Georgetown, Mass.) free position attempt before the Golden Bears would pump in three quick scores coming on a Jessica Scannapieco (Blue Bell, Pa.) free position shot at 26:56, Kelsey Armstrong (Groton, Conn.) at 25:59, and Scialdone free position attempt at 24:37 that brought the contest to 9-8.
The Hawks would regain the momentum by mounting a four goal run with Machette finding the net for three of those scores. The first coming on unassisted drive at 22:18 and the second Rahilly's fourth assist of the game at 16:42. Pingree would chip in the third score at 15:51 on a pass from Logan before Machette and Rahilly would connect again to give the Hawks a comfortable 13-8 lead.
Scannapeico continued to compete for the WNE pumping in two free position shots at 13:06 and 12:27 that cut the lead to 13-10 but the Hawks would mount a final surge that would result in five unanswered goals and put the game out of reach. McKenna Everding (Fayetteville, N.Y.) was the first to hit on a pass from Machette with 10:58 to play. Pingree and Rahilly would mark the next two unassisted at 5:42 and 4:18 respectively. Machette finished for her fifth goal on the afternoon at 3:57 from Pingree and Logan would beat the goalie with 2:34 to put the score at 18-10.
The team would trade goals in the final minutes to and end the competition at 19-11.
Each team finished with 31 shots with the WNE earning a slight advantage in groundballs 35-39 but the Hawks taking a significant advantage in draw controls 22-10.
Emily Castleman (Wilbraham, Mass.) stopped 10 balls in the loss with Kimberly Bolk (Port Jefferson Station, N.Y.) matching her in saves for the win.
