Leif Johnson

Staff Writer

The Millersville Women’s Lacrosse Team completed another week of their season by splitting a pair of PSAC contests. Last Tuesday, the Marauders travelled to Shippensburg to take on the Raiders. The Raiders were still looking for their first PSAC win and played with the desperate intensity fitting a team in their situation.

The Marauders found themselves down 4-3 at the end of the first half but Senior Midfielder Bridget Hufnagel led the Marauder charge out of the half with three straight goals. Sophomore Kristen Butzner and Junior Renee Landis each added a goal to complete a five-goal run, but the Raiders would not go away. Shippensburg added a pair of goals with under three minutes to go to pull within one of Millersville. The Raiders made a last effort to tie the game, but Freshman Midfielder Natalie Sukanick caused Shippensburg to turn the ball over in the final seconds to preserve a 9-8 victory for the Marauders.

The Marauders returned home this past Friday to face the fifth ranked Mercyhurst Lakers. The Lakers came into Biemesderfer Stadium sporting a record that was the exact opposite of Shippensburg, having not dropped a PSAC match thus far this season. Despite their lofty record and ranking, the Lakers would be in for a fight.

“We went into this game thinking that this team is beatable and that we wanted to give them a game to remember,” explained Sophomore Callie Kavanaugh.

The game began as a back and forth affair with Mercyhurst in the lead but the Marauders would not let up. With just over six minutes to go in the half and the score at 5-4 in favor of the Lakers, mother nature decided to step in with a thunderstorm causing a delay that lasted for almost an hour before play resumed.

During the delay, Millersville took steps to stay focused. “Coach (Hall) didn’t want us talking about the game. She wanted us to stop thinking and just relax! We listened to some music to get us pumped up and tried to stay hype the whole time!” said Kavanaugh.

Though the Lakers would score the first goal after the break Kavanaugh found the back of the net and Sophomore Sabrina Fusco knotted the game at six with just 12 seconds left in the first half. Mercyhurst would sneak one in the goal with just two seconds remaining in the first half to take a 7-6 lead into the second break.

Coming out of the break Freshman Renee Morrow tied the match at seven, but the Lakers would answer with four straight goals. The Marauders still would not let go as Senior Bridget Hufnagel tacked on two more goals and Kavanaugh added her third of the game to bring the score to 12-10 with less than 10 minutes to go. The Lakers pulled away at this point with another flurry for a hard fought 16-10 victories that were closer than the score would indicate.

The Millersville Women’s Lacrosse team now stands with a record of 6-5 and 3-4 in PSAC play with the playoffs still in reach. They will host Kutztown University on Wednesday at 4p.m. in Biemesderfer Stadium.