NASHUA, N.H. — Southern Vermont College picked up its first win of the 2016 season Saturday at Eagle Field, defeating hosting Daniel Webster College 12-9 in New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) women's lacrosse action.
SVC (1-4, 1-1 NECC) led the whole way, taking a 7-4 upper hand into the halftime intermission before keeping Daniel Webster (1-6, 0-2 NECC) from surging back in the final 30 minutes for the Mountaineers to walk out with the league victory.
Southern Vermont is right back in action on Sunday, continuing its road trip with a 1 p.m. non-conference contest at Johnson State College. The Eagles now look ahead to their Tuesday home game against Mitchell College, that NECC matchup being slated for 4 p.m. at DWC.
Mountaineer junior captain Mel Orrell (Gloucester, Mass.) netted a team-best four goals on the day, adding three ground balls, two draw controls and a caused turnover to her line. Classmate and fellow captain Emily Lesure (Cheshire, Mass.) tallied a hat-trick to go along with her two ground balls and game-leading four draw controls while junior captain Lauren Nesshoever (Chittenden, Vt.) had two goals, two assists, two ground balls and two draw controls in the win. Additionally, sophomore rookie Paige Vitale (Greenville, N.Y.) registered an assist and her first collegiate goal for SVC.
Sophomore keeper Kelsey Carrera (Queensbury, N.Y.) made nine saves in picking up the win in goal (1-3) as her freshman counterpart Madison Wood (Suwanee, Ga.) turned away eight Southern Vermont shots in the defeat (1-6) between the pipes.
The Eagles were led offensively by sophomore Amanda Dargie (Melbourne, Fla.) who recorded a game-high six goals on the afternoon. Classmate Rose Brown (Queens Village, N.Y.) had a goal while tying the game-best of five ground balls, and junior Taylor St. Jean (Manchester, N.H.) chipped in with another five ground balls and an assist in the effort.
Daniel Webster won the turnover battle by a 30-24 margin and scooped up 30 ground balls to the Mountaineers' 20, but SVC doubled up DWC's draw controls with a 16-8 tally; that draw control figure for Southern Vermont is the most-ever the team has secured in a single game. Both teams had 13 successful clears on the day and each scored a pair of free-position shots.
Nesshoever wasted little time in getting Southern Vermont on the board first in the wet, rainy conditions, notching the game's opening goal just 32 seconds into the match for her seventh of the season. Orrell would then tally her first of the afternoon on an unassisted score before Dargie cut into the deficit with a goal at the 21:34 mark of the first half.
SVC seized the momentum at that point, however, rallying off four unanswered to go in front 6-1. Lesure got that spurt started with a free-position attempt before Vitale fed Orrell midway through the period. Southern Vermont sophomore Natalie Rose Canterbury (New Hartford, Conn.) got her season's first goal to go as she beat the DWC keeper on a free-position shot at the left edge, and Orrell then found the back of the net to cap the run with 10:25 go to in the stanza.
The Eagles refused to go quietly, chipping away at the SVC lead with three straight of their own. Dargie registered two goals to sandwich one on a free-position attempt by junior Madeline Roulier (Pittsfield, Mass.) to make it a 6-4 affair just north of the 2:00 mark. With a pair of Mountaineers in the penalty area, Nesshoever slotted her second of the half with 27 ticks to go for Southern Vermont to take a 7-4 advantage into the break.
Still playing a man down after halftime, Lesure trailed Nesshoever towards the goal and took the nice, backward pass before sending the ball into the back of the cage to up the SVC separation just 30 seconds into the second period. Dargie got it back with her fourth of the day, but the Mountaineers responded as freshman Aubrey Vierstra (Saugerties, N.Y.) scooped up a ground ball, came around the left side of the frame, and discarded it into the back of the net for her second goal of the year.
The back-and-forth continued as the skies cleared up, Daniel Webster answering on an unassisted score off of Rose's stick at the other end. The 9-6 SVC lead held up through the next seven minutes before Vitale put home her unassisted goal with an Eagle in the penalty area. DWC would be shown another card shortly thereafter, but it wouldn't prevent St. Jean finding freshman Kathleen Zimmerman (Monroe, N.C.) for the shorthanded tally that set the score at 10-7 in favor of the Mountaineers with 12:26 left on the clock.
Daniel Webster inched even closer two minutes later when Dargie converted on a free-position shot to make it a two-goal game. Southern Vermont would quickly pad its lead, however, as Orrell and Lesure teamed up to score twice in a 49-second span, Lesure's being off a Nesshoever feed to put her team up by four. Those goals were the eighth this season for Orrell and the seventh of 2016 for Lesure.
The final 9:07 of play was nearly scoreless as the first eight minutes of that period saw the Mountaineers try to run down the time while the Eagles pushed to claw their way back. DWC was able to get five shots off as the end grew near, Carerra saving the three that were on goal including two that came via free-position attempts.
Finally, the Daniel Webster persistence paid off as Dargie took a pass from freshman Brittany Tierney (Napean, Ontario) and placed it past the SVC keeper for her team-leading 20th goal of the season. That score came with only 1:45 left to go, however, as time ran out on Daniel Webster's comeback attempt while Southern Vermont celebrated its first victory on the 2016 campaign.