Coming off of their loss on Saturday to Simmons, the women's lacrosse team was looking for a redeeming game on their home turf against Saint Joe’s CT on Wednesday. They would fall short of a win after conceding the game winning goal with just minutes to go 12-13.
The Lasers would strike first off their first shot of the game from junior Teresa Kessner. Seconds later, Lasell got another break and senior Kait Bedell scored without letting Saint Joe's offense touch the ball.
Saint Joe's Makenzie Dinger stepped up and started making moves on offense, gaining their first goal before the five minute mark. Dinger went on to miss two penalty shots, stopped by Lasers first-year goalie Joy Sayah. The Lasers answered back with another goal at 4:43 by Kaileigh Costa, assisted by Bedell.
First period ended 3-1 in favor of the home team, and quickly went up 4-1 starting the next half strong in seconds with a goal by Kessner. The ball went back and forth for a while, but eventually Saint Joe's offense gained some traction around the six minute mark. First a goal from Junior Laura Wilkes, assisted by senior Cayleen Defaranos, and a minute later, Dinger scored her second goal, making the score now 3-4.
Only up by one and about five minutes left to go, Bedell put another ball into the back of Saint Joes net for her second goal of the game, attempting to keep our lead. Perhaps feeling a little too comfortable in that goal, the Lasers defense seemingly broke down in the last minutes of the half, allowing two more goals from Dinger and Wilkes.
Continuing their comeback, Wilkes made her third goal of the game less than two minutes in, assisted by Sophomore Maya Tomko. This time without backing down, the Lasers' answer to Saint Joe’s was three straight goals. Kessner tied it 6-6 at 11:10, a minute later assisted senior Emily Chapdelaine in her first goal, then scored her third goal at 6:46.
With a good chunk of the quarter still left, Dinger was proving to become a big issue for our defense the rest of the game, splitting Lasells defense for another goal, making the score 7-8.
Five minutes left in the third quarter and a lot of back and forth down the field pursued, ignited by Saint Joes 5’2 midfield attacker, Dinger. Bedell would strike again for the Lasers at 4:58, followed by an assist at 1:14 to Chapdelaine.
“Our team has been working really hard at building our skills and improving our game. We have a good amount of girls that are new to the sport so we have worked hard to get to where we are now, and i’m proud of my team in the losses and the wins.” Said Chapdelaine.
With the score 10-7 in favor of the Lasers, their defense began to break down again right before the end of the quarter. Dinger, with 31 seconds left on the clock, scores two more goals, making that her 6th goal and the score 9-10 going into the fourth.
Bedell, again in an attempt to get the Lasers more of a lead, gets the first goal of the fourth at 11:15, her fourth goal of the game. Dinger again answered with two more goals at 7:25 and 7:05, making 8 total for the game. Following that, Blue Jays Karina Jasill scored her first, assisted by Morgan Rhoades, and another from Wilkes making it her 4th for the game.
Now with the score 13-11 Saint Joe’s up after scoring 4 straight goals, Chapdelaine came in with a little over a minute left to score her third and final goal of the game.
Even though the Lasers lost their lead, in the end the score was 13-12 Saint Joes CT.
Chapdelaine said “... no loss is easy, and we have a lot of things we’re going to work on, but we also have a lot of things we’ve done really well. So I have confidence we can only go up from here, and that the next games we will prove hard work pays off.”
Looking forward to their next opponent, the Lasers take on Johnson and Whales at Greiller Field this Saturday the 25th at 3:30pm for their White Ribbon Game.