BALTIMORE, Md. – Notre Dame of Maryland will defend their women's lacrosse conference championship for one more game, after winning their semi-finals matchup with Centenary, 18-4. They will host Wilson College in the Colonial States Athletics Conference (CSAC) Finals, who beat Keystone today in overtime, 7-6.
The Gators scored early and often in the match, putting up nine goals in the first ten minutes of the game.
Julie Hagis opened up the scoring one minute and 18 seconds in with her 14
th goal of the season, and Centenary's leading scorer, Kaylee Bennett quickly responded to tie it up at 1-1. NDMU then rattled off 17 unanswered goals in the next 34 and a half minutes. Centenary would score three more times, and defensively stood up to a still attacking Gators front late in the game, despite the score.
CSAC Rookie of the Year,
Sara Morales, led the way with five goals and seven points, bringing her season totals up to 27 and 44 respectively. Three other Gators notched hat tricks.
Kelsey Campbell scored four times, tying Morales for the team, and conference lead with 27 goals this campaign.
Hannah Mullaney and
Vanessa Dunn tickled the twine three times apiece.
CSAC Defensive Player of the Year,
Michaela Seay, along with
Jaime Ballard, both caused two turnovers, accounting for four of the ten CTs the Gators amounted.
Gators Keeper,
Marie Salas, entered the game with a 63.5% save percentage, and it will remain above 60% as she stopped six out of ten shots on goal from the Cyclones.
With the win, the Gators are on the doorstep of earning their second straight CSAC Championship, and an automatic bid into the NCAA D-III Tournament. Only Wilson College stands in the way. On April 7
th, the Gators traveled to Wilson for their only matchup of the season and won 17-7. In the game, NDMU got off to a slower start than they would have liked, and Wilson kept it close with a 7-5 score at the half. The high scoring duo of Campbell and Morales scored 12 of the Gators 17 goals that night.
Wilson is the tournaments number two seed after Bryn Athyn was forced to withdraw, and had gone 3-2 in CSAC play this season. They are the biggest threat to score on the Gators in the conference given that they average 25.25 shots per game, versus the Gators league best 32.5 per.
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