With a No. 1 seed in the Atlantic 10 Tournament hanging in the balance, the Massachusetts women’s lacrosse team wasted little time in taking care of business Sunday.
The No. 12 Minutewomen scored five of the first six goals and never looked back as they clinched the top seed in next weekend’s conference tournament with a 16-6 win over Duquesne on Sunday at McGuirk Stadium.
UMass (15-2, 7-0 A-10) has now won the last three A-10 regular-season titles and will host No. 4 seed George Washington on Friday at McGuirk in the first round of the conference tournament.
Senior attack Lauren Terracciano, who was one of four Minutewomen honored during Senior Day ceremonies, felt the win over the Dukes (10-6, 5-2 A-10) was well deserved.
“(It was) just a nice, sort of low stress day, but it took a lot of hard work to get that low stress,” she said. “From the defensive end to the offensive end, we didn’t let down.
Junior attack Sam Rush led all scorers with five goals, including the first two goals of the game in the first three minutes of play.
The game was dominated by UMass, which put together many short runs, including a 5-0 spurt in the middle of the second half that gave the Minutewomen a 15-5 lead and put the game out of reach.
Terracciano – who scored her 30th goal of the season in the contest – and Tanner Guarino each added hat tricks for UMass, which outshot Duquesne 39-14 in the game.
Coach Angela McMahon was happy with the way her offense stepped up.
“Dominating draw controls and creating cause turnovers on our ride gave us more offensive possession,” McMahon said. “We finished our shots, we played as a team, a lot of different people were on the scoring sheet and stepped up. That’s what we need to do going forward.”
McMahon said she is proud of her seniors and that contributions by Terracciano and Cori Murray were impactful in her squad’s win. And with much of the Dukes’ attention focused on junior star Katie Ferris, it was made that much more important that others step up.
“We wanted to leave on a good note with the regular season and come out strong going into the A-10 tournament,” Murray said. “We wanted to come out and give it all we had. I was very happy to see the outcome.”
Freshmen find scoring touch against St. Bonaventure
It was a scoring parade and freshman midfielder Nicole Troost was the grand marshal.
Troost scored her first collegiate hat trick in a 19-2 rout of St. Bonaventure on Friday that saw UMass go on an 11-0 run to open the contest until Lauren Michaels put the Bonnies (6-11, 0-7 A-10) on the board with two minutes, 51 seconds left until halftime.
Troost wasn’t the only freshman to contribute. Rookie attack Katie Boden and midfielder Eileen McDonald each tallied two goals in the contest, and Amber Tobin scored her first career goal.
McMahon was pleased to give her underclassmen playing time since they’ve been showing promise in practice. And it showed as they played fearlessly when given the opportunity for more game time on Friday.
“They’re all very dynamic players, very athletic,” McMahon said. “They’ve been playing great all year round and I think that they’re really starting to feel more comfortable within our offense and how we work. (They’re) finding their niches within that and I think the confidence they have to go out there and go hard to goal is showing off in the stats.”
Minutewomen begin drive for five
UMass will now look ahead to this weekend’s Atlantic 10 Tournament, where it will play GW on Friday at 1 p.m. in the first round.
As holders of the Championship for the last four years, a fifth Minutewoman conference title would break a tie with Temple for the most in A-10 history.
McMahon said that her team is fully aware of the stakes that the postseason holds.
“It’s a totally new season now,” McMahon said. “Everything’s on the line, there’s a great sense of urgency and we have to make sure we’re ready and prepared, hopefully putting ourselves in a good position to win.”
With her mind set on the trophy, Murray said that regardless of who UMass plays, it has seen all of these teams before, so there is already a degree of preparedness.
Terracciano echoed her teammate and added that she welcomes the competition.
“Teams are gonna come out for us like always and we just have to worry about UMass lacrosse only,” Terracciano said. “We have to worry about us and our game. As long as we play to our full potential, I don’t think we can be stopped.”
Peter Cappiello can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @MDC_Cappiello.
