Coming off a lopsided victory against West Virginia Wesleyan, the Slippery Rock women’s lacrosse team (1-1) was handed their first loss of the season by the Lions of Lindenwood University, MO (3-1) last Friday.
The Lions, ranked 13th in the nation, defeated the Green and White by a score of 19-11.
Lindenwood jumped out to a two goal lead early in the game but SRU answered back with two of their own, tying it 2-2.
Slippery Rock then remained idle as Lindenwood exploded for 8 more goals of their own, taking a 10-2 lead with 7 minutes to play in the half.
SRU outscored the Lions 4-3 in the final seven minutes of the first half to enter the break trailing Lindenwood 6-13.
“We kept our composure working for one goal and one draw control at a time,” SRU head coach Emily Hopkins said. “We have matured as a team since last year and kept fighting against Lindenwood.”
The second half had significantly less coring than the first with only 11 goals total being scored compared to 19 in the first half.
SRU scored five in the second half and the Lions scored six.
Senior Morgan Pettit was the top performer for Slippery Rock with three goals and three assists. Pettit has 10 goals and 14 points total through two games.
“We don’t try and run our offense through one person. We haven’t looked (just) for her,” Hopkins said. “We try to have a balanced attack so it makes it hard for other teams to stops us. She has done a great job of stepping up.
Junior Erin Wilcox, freshman Chynna Chan and junior Katie Cook each scored two goals for SRU. Sophomore Anna-Marie Warrington had two assists for the Rock.
Slippery Rock sophomore Hannah Houde was in goal for a majority of the match and allowed 15 goals and recorded 13 saves. Sophomore Jordan Wagner was in goal for just under six minutes and allowed four goals with one save.
Lindenwood was led by senior Melissa Smith with five goals and three assists, senior Shelby Polk with four goals and three assists and junior Melissa Menchella with three goals and one assist.
The Lions senior goalkeeper Christine Hehmeyer allowed 11 goals and had six saves.
Lindenwood led in total shots 39-19 and ground balls 21-12 over the Rock.
SRU held the advantage in draw controls 19-13 but was only successful on 7-of-16 clears.
Slippery Rock will close out their three-game season opening homestand against the Roberts Wesleyan Redhawks (2-4) on Tuesday, March 11 at 4 p.m.
