With two minutes left in the final period of the women’s lacrosse game, Tracie Lombardo passed to Chelsea Phillips. Phillips then made a quick dash toward the net, spun around a defender, and flung the ball into the bottom right corner for the game-winning shot.
The Lions won 13-12 in a contest that was highly competitive down to the final seconds of the game.
Emerson and Salve Regina University traded goals throughout the night, sometimes scoring within minutes of each other. The two teams took a total of 49 shots in the game.
Head coach Megan Moore said she was proud of how the Lions battled the entire match.
“This was the most competitive game we’ve played, and certainly a great learning moment for us,” Moore said. “I’m definitely proud of the way we played — we stayed composed even through some dicey moments.”
The Lions started exchanging points with the Seahawks after the first whistle blew to begin the game. Salve Regina scored four goals in the first five minutes of play, and Emerson responded by rattling off four points in the next three minutes.
This initiated a tug of war between the Lions and Seahawks; after one team scored, the other would respond in minutes or seconds, keeping the score close or tied until the final minutes of the game.
Phillips, who made five goals for Emerson, said the Lions’ offense seemed fluid throughout the game, and the team was able to outmaneuver the Seahawks’ defense down the stretch.
“We were just trying to play our game,” said Phillips, a junior marketing communication major and a midfielder. “We wanted to slow down the pace, move the ball around, spread out and the find the weak points in their defense.”
Emerson also made several key defensive stops. Goalie Victoria Kanaris, a freshman visual and media arts major, had 13 saves, including one immediately before the buzzer that avoided an overtime period.
Lombardo, a senior midfielder and a professional music major at Berklee College of Music, said she felt this was a strong overall performance from the team, which should provide a strong building block for the remainder of the season.
“We were rushing a lot at the start of the game, but we started to settle down towards the end of the first half, and carried that mindset into the second half,” Lombardo said. “If we keep the momentum on offense like we did in this game and we play tight defense, we’ll be able to win every game.”
Several University of Massachusetts and Berklee College of Music students play for the Emerson lacrosse team through the ProArts Consortium.
The women’s lacrosse team, now 4-4 overall and 1-1 in conference play, has eight remaining games, seven of which are against Great Northeast Athletic Conference opponents.
The Lion’s next home game is against Curry College on March 29 at Rotch Field.