Slippery Rock women’s lacrosse took a tough loss to No. 19 Indiana University of Pennsylvania on Wednesday evening. This marks their third loss in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) on the season. The Rock falls to 7-4 on the season and 3-3 in the PSAC games. All four losses have come from Division II nationally ranked teams.
Slippery Rock head coach Emily Hopkins believes it’s very important for her team to see tough competition this late into the season, especially as the PSAC playoffs are quickly approaching.
“Playing good competition prepares us,” Hopkins said. “We played pretty good competition (Wednesday) but unfortunately we need to do a better job cleaning up our turnovers and reducing our fouls. If we took better advantage of our opportunities, I think we would’ve won.”
The game started off with IUP taking a 6-3 lead halfway through the first period. Slippery Rock responded with a very helpful 4-0 run and finished off the half with a 5-2 run to send the game to an even 8-8 score at the half.
Slippery Rock came out in the second half taking a 10-8 lead with a little over 26 minutes left to play.
Indiana decided to change their goalkeeper after Slippery Rock scored its 10th goal, which paid off for IUP in the long run.
The Crimson Hawks put together a four-goal run over an eight-minute period to take the lead with a little over 17 minutes left to play.
Slippery Rock was given chances as the game was winding down. Senior Erin Wilcox managed to cut the deficit down to 12-11 with a little over 15 minutes to play, but IUP’s defense did not allow another solid scoring chance. Indiana led in shots with 26 compared to Slippery Rock’s 17.
Erin Wilcox led the way with four goals. She has scored in all 11 games of the season and has scored multiples goals in ten of the 11 games.
“We don’t really position our offense around any particular player,” Hopkins said. “We move the ball around with everybody and they should all be getting looks. But (Erin) has a high shooting percentage and really takes advantage of all the shot opportunities.”
Junior Caitlynn Palladino and junior Chynna Chan each had two goals.
Sophomore Bre Vodde and junior Jasey Sanders each had one goal. Senior Kaytlin Callaghan, sophomore Tia Torchia and senior Anna-Marie Warrington all had one assist to finish off the point scorers.
The competition doesn’t get any easier as Slippery Rock travels to No. 12 Lock Haven, the national runner-up in 2015, on Saturday at 1 p.m.
