HUNTINGDON, Pa.- The Juniata women's lacrosse team suffered a gut wrenching 15-14 sudden death overtime loss to visiting St. Vincent, on a blustery Wednesday afternoon at Gibbel Stadium.
Arielle Danchenko (Palm City, Fla./South Fork HS) had four goals, two assists and nine draw controls. Natalie Gibson (Annapolis, Md./Broadneck) scored three goals, had one assist, two ground balls, five draw controls and five caused turnovers. Zoe Fishter (Sewickley, Pa./Quaker Valley) had two goals and an assist while Lauren Rowe (Selinsgrove, Pa./Selinsgrove Area HS) had two goals. Kylie Edwards (Danville, Pa./Danville), Santana Mays (Parkton, Md./Hereford) and Kerry McClaughry (Somerville, N.J./Somerville HS) tallied one goal apiece. Mina Wilt (Wells Tannery, Pa./Forbes Road) added five ground balls, six draw controls and five caused turnovers.
Juniata jumped on the Bearcats early as McClaughry scored unassisted and Rowe scored on a free position shot. A minute after, Gibson scored off a pass from Fishter to put JC up 3-0 five minutes in. St. Vincent's Maggie Nelson scored five goals and assisted another as she pushed the Bearcats ahead 6-3 over the next 17 minutes. With seven minutes to go, Danchenko and Fishter scored goals with another St. Vincent goal sandwiched in-between to make it 7-5. Danchenko won the proceeding draw control after Fishter's goal, went the length of the field and scored to bring JC within one. Juniata went into the locker room down 7-6.
The Bearcats netted the first two goals of the second half four minutes into push their lead back to three. Free position goals from Gibson, Fishter and Danchenko over the next two minutes quickly pulled JC even.
The Bearcats surged ahead with four goals over eight minutes to grab a 13-9 lead. Danchenko found Mays and 13 seconds later, Edwards scooped up a ball on the right wing, cut across the goal and fired past the keeper to pull the Eagles within two. Danchenko found Rowe to cut the deficit to one before Gibson scored while the Eagles were a woman up to tie the score at 13-13 with a little under four minutes to go. The teams traded free positions goals over the next minute as the teams were tied 14-14.
With a minute to go, Isabella Medaris (Monroe, Conn./Masulk) made huge save on a free-position shot to keep the score tied.
In the final thirty seconds, it looked like the Bearcats had found a late winner when Nelson put the ball in the back of the net. But the referee's judged her stick to make illegal and disallowed the goal. In the final seconds of regulation Danchenko fired a low rolling shot but the St. Vincent keeper stopped it.
Gibson grabbed the opening draw control in overtime and fired a shot but again the Bearcat keeper stopped it. The Bearcats found a winner with 37 seconds left in overtime period as Nelson netted her 10th goal.
Juniata returns to action against Sweet Briar, Sunday at 1:00.