Emerson Holds Off Late Rally To Down Wellesley Lacrosse, 12-11

BOSTON, Mass. – Trailing 12-7 with less than nine minutes to play, Wellesley College lacrosse scored four-straight goals to close the gap to one, but came up just short in a 12-11 setback at Emerson College in New England Women's & Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) play on Wednesday at Rotch Field. 

Wellesley is now 7-6 overall and 3-3 in the NEWMAC, dropping, for the moment, into the sixth spot in the conference standings with a pair of games remaining. Emerson improves to 6-8 overall, but 4-2 in league play to move into fourth place in the league standings. 

Senior Meredith Weber (West Caldwell, N.J) scored a game-high six points on five goals and an assist, also picking up five groundballs and seven draw controls, to lead the Lions. Weber now has a team-leading 54 goals on the season. First year Jenna Tomsky (Clinton, N.J.) scored a hat trick and added an assist, while juniors Brooke Goshtigian (Action, Mass.) and Megan Messuri (Stoneham, Mass.) each scored a pair of goals. First year Sophia Gripari (London, United Kingdom) had a game-high six ground balls for the Lions.

Wellesley senior Mary Lemay (Longmeadow, Mass.) matched her career-high with five points, scoring four goals and assisting on classmate Nikki Sharkin's (Summit, N.J.) final goal. Sharkin also had five points for the Blue, scoring a hat trick and adding two assists, while also causing a pair of turnovers. Sophomore Lena Engbretson (Beaverton, Ore.) added two goals and an assist and classmate Dacia Persky (Las Vegas, Nev.) had a goal and a helper. Junior Mayu Kickuchi (Villanova, Pa.) rounded out the Blue attack with her fourth goal of the season. Junior Jenny Gubner (Pleasanton, Calif.) had a team-best four ground balls and added a pair of draw controls. 

The opening 13 minutes of the game belonged to the Lions, with the hosts getting the opening goal from Goshtigian before Weber scored a natural hat trick to make the score 4-0 at 17:00. Engbretson and Persky scored just 23 seconds apart to draw the Blue back within two at 11:04, but goals from Tonsky and Messuri stretched the Emerson lead back to four, at 6-2, with 8:31 to go before the half. Engbretson scored her second at 5:37, igniting a run of three-straight Wellesley goals to draw the Blue back within one, at 6-5. However, Tomsky completed her hat trick over the final three minutes of the first to make the score 8-5 Emerson at the break.

Messuri put the Lions up by four to start the second half, scoring at 25:30. A goal from Sharkin got the Blue back to within three, but Emerson again pushed the lead back out, scoring twice thanks to Goshtigian and Weber to go up 11-6 at 15:05 of the second. Sharkin and Weber exchanged goals at 13:08 and 9:10, respectively, before Wellesley made one final push to close the gap. Lemay scored three-straight goals to draw the Blue back within two with 4:04 remaining. The senior then set-up Sharkin at 3:31 to make it a one goal game, but Wellesley was unable to get a shot on goal following Sharkin's third goal, as Emerson won the ensuing draw. 

Wellesley will play at Mount Holyoke in their final regular season road contest on Saturday, April 22, at 12:00 PM. Emerson is also in action on Saturday when they travel across town to face MIT at 1:00 PM.