Elizabethtown Outlasts Goucher Women's Lacrosse

ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. – Goucher College battled Elizabethtown College tough in a 20-15 loss in Landmark Conference women's lacrosse action on Saturday.

Julia Gazzola (Hagerstown, Md./North Hagerstown) paced the Gophers with five goals and one assist for six points along with seven draw controls and two ground balls. The freshman notched her third game this season with five or more tallies while registering hers sixth-straight multi-goal performance and eighth of her career. She has 25 goals and six assists for 31 points in her last six games. In addition, she has 74 draw controls on the season, nine away from Merlo Tersigni's (83, 2008) program record.

Alyssa Long (Pennsburg, Pa./Upper Perkiomen) stuffed the stat sheet with three goals, one assist, four ground balls, three draw controls and a caused turnover. The junior has three hat tricks in her last five games and four three-goal games in her career. She has 48 tallies and 16 assists for her career including a career-best 18 markers and six assists for 26 points in 2019.

Jordan Tice (Batavia, Ill./Batavia) chipped in a career-high two goals along with two assists for four points. Coming into the season, the senior only had two assists, but this year she has five tallies and 10 assists for 12 points in her senior campaign.  Tice notched her first two-goal performance of her career while she dished out two assists or more in a game for the third time in 2019.

After Gazzola tied the game at 5, the Blue Jays rolled off seven of the next nine goals to take a 12-7 advantage. Gazzola from Shannon Stull (Westminster, Md./Francis Scott Key) at 14:07 and Aubrie DiBenedetto's (Bristow, Va./Patriot) first career goal of an 8-meter shot at 7:27 were the only two Goucher goals in the run.

The Gophers found the twine three times in the final four minutes to cut the margin to 12-10 at the break. Tice started the run when she setup Gazzola at 3:43 before Gazzola connected with Mackenzie Nase (Weare, N.H./John Stark Regional) at 3:13 and Emily Flinn (Ashland, Va./Patrick Henry) closed out the first-half scoring with a free-position goal with 14 ticks on the clock to make it a two-goal game.

The Blue Jays came out of the break to score the first six tallies of the second half to take an 18-10 lead. Goucher scored six of the final eight markers to close the gap to 20-15, but could get no closer.

Tice started a 3-0 run with a tally off a Flinn helper at 21:33 before Tice feed Camryn Agostino (South Setauket, N.Y./Ward Melville) at 11:45. Nineteen seconds later Alex DiGiovanni (York, Pa./Dover) found the back of the net off a pass from Soleil Gagne (Portsmouth, N.H./Portsmouth) at 11:26 to trim the score to 18-13. Long scored unassisted at 2:46 and Gazzola posted a goal with 15 seconds left after Elizabethtown markers to set the final score.

Long helped Goucher jump out to a 2-1 lead thanks to an unassisted goal at 24:42 and an 8-meter tally at 24:13. Gazzola gave the team a 3-2 lead when she took a pass from netminder Abbie McHerron (Burnt Hills, N.Y./Burnt Hills) at 22:08. Tice tied the game at 4 on a free-position goal at 17:03 and Gazzola even the score off a Long feed at 16:03. The Blue Jays then used big runs to take the advantage and the Gophers could not fully recover in the loss.

McHerron made 18 saves while Stull was held scoreless for only the fifth time in her career. The junior did grab five draw controls and now needs three to reach 100 draw controls for her career.

Goucher returns to action at home against Scranton on Saturday. Game time is 1 p.m.