Sports
W. Lax stuns champions, heads to Sweet 16
By Joe Jensen ’15
May 15, 2015
Though many of the spring sports have wrapped up their seasons on the Hill, the women’s lacrosse team is not ready to stop just yet. The Continentals recently obtained an at-large bid for the NCAA tournament, setting themselves up to meet their old rival, the two-time defending national champion, Salisbury University. As if simply advancing wasn’t enough, the Continentals had a score to settle. Having played two times in prior tournaments with the Sea Gulls leading the series 2-1. No. 8 Salisbury and No. 13 Hamilton played arguably the most entertaining game of their seasons, which ended in a thrilling double overtime finish.
Up against one of the more potent offenses in the country Hamilton needed to bring their A-game. The Continentals got out to an early 5-3 lead with two goals scored by Ashleigh Stephan ’15. Salisbury fired back with the first two goals of the second half to tie the score at five. After going back and forth for the rest of the half, Hamilton found themselves on the wrong side of an 8-7 score with less than four minutes left in the game. As the game reached its close the Continentals looked to their leader, none other than Morgan Fletcher ’17. With just 1:29 left on the clock, Fletcher scored her 28th goal of the season to tie the game.
The first overtime was a dogfight with nobody finding a way to score a goal. Hannah Rubin ’17 had two of her 10 saves on the day in this first overtime period. In the second overtime the two teams still could not break through each other’s defenses. With 4:12 left in the game the Continentals called a timeout to plan an offensive attack. Just eight seconds after their timeout, Darby Philbrick ’18 scored, unassisted, her fifteenth goal of the season to win the game. Philbrick’s third goal of the day helped the Continentals take down the defending champions
The Hamilton College women’s lacrosse team did not go to the tournament just to play one game. Their eyes are already set on their next game against NESCAC rival Middlebury College. The game will be held on Saturday, May 16th at Gettysburg College. When the two teams met in the regular season the Panthers won 12-10.
The Middlebury Panthers are coming off of a crushing win over MIT with a score of 19-9. Hamilton will not let that discourage them as the look to build off of their momentum after knocking off the tournament favorite Salisbury. Since one of the toughest feats in sports is to defeat the same team twice in one season, the Continentals will be ready for revenge and a chance to make the Elite 8.