By: Tom Maguire, Beat Writer Bates College Women’s Lacrosse
Lacrosse is Awesome
The Bates Bobcats avenged an end of season loss to the Colby Mules with a solid 9-3 victory Saturday April 30 in the NESCAC quarterfinals at Colby College. The 5th seed Bobcats will travel to Hartford to face the top seed Trinity Bantams next Saturday May 7, in the NESCAC semi-finals.
After nearly 10 minutes of physical defensive play by both teams, the Colby Mules broke the scoring drought at 20:29 as senior Abby Hooper (Nahant MA) was open on the right side of the net and fired a low shot on a nice pass from Lexie Perticone (Darien CT). The Bobcats responded two minutes later at 18:06 with senior Alex Briody (N. Kingstown RI) burying a free position shot. Less than a minute later at 17:18, sophomore Allison Dewey high pointed a pass from senior Moriah Greenstein (Glenmont NY) and snapped in a goal to the top corner. For the next 13 scoreless minutes, both teams tried to impose their will on each other in a back and forth battle. At 3:41, junior Kaileigh Maguire (Sudbury MA) with a free position shot scored the final goal of the half to put Bates up 3-1 as she faked a right side shot and buried a left hander. In the half, both goalies had four saves and Bates outshot Colby 10-7 but Colby held a 9-7 ground ball lead.
Top NESCAC top goal scorer, Moriah Greenstein was held scoreless in the mid-week loss to Colby but she took control in the first two minutes of the second half with two key scores. At 28:36, she powered through a gauntlet of Colby defenders and drew a free position shot which she converted; and 23 seconds later, fellow senior Briody found Greenstein open at the corner of the net and converted putting the Bobcats up 5-1.
Colby continued to attack and halved the lead to 5-3 with high energy play. At 25:32, Perticone found the corner of the net on a nice precision pass from Hooper. Seven minutes later, on a free position shot, sophomore Sasha Fritts (Darien CT) faked a shot and passed to sophomore Kendall Smith who tucked it in the goal to close the gap to 5-3. For the next ten minutes, Colby applied tremendous pressure on the Bates defense, desperately trying to close the two goal gap. Bates senior all American goalie Hannah Jeffrey (Darien CT) came up huge again as she made three highlight reel worthy saves to deny the Mules. This was the turning point of the game.
NESCAC leading draw control specialist sophomore Camille Belletete turned the momentum back to the Bobcats on a high energy diving side arm bounce shot as the foul was called on Colby. The goal was good at 17:27 to stretch the lead to 6-3 and Bates retained possession on the foul. At 8:12, Senior Emma Brinkman padded the lead to 7-3 on a bounce shot that crossed the goal line just under the crossbar on a nice pass from sophomore Teal Otley (Cumberland ME). Greenstein drew a free position foul at 4:12 and snapped in a sidearm shot to stretch the lead to 8-3. Dewey closed out the scoring at 2:52 on an assist from Brinkman as the Bates fans breathed a collective sigh of relief as the Bobcats ran out the clock with a 9-3 victory.
Bobcat tracks:
- Bates has its first NESCAC tournament appearance since the inception of the playoff format in 2001.
The 12 wins this year thus far ranks second in Bates women’s lacrosse school history to the 14 wins for the 1992 ECAC champs. - The Bobcats were ranked in the top 10 nationally in D III goals against defense allowing 6.0 goals per game.
- Senior goalie Hannah Jeffrey was top goalie in the entire NCAA with a 59.8% regular season save percentage.
- Senior Moriah Greenstein led the NESCAC during the regular season in goal scoring with 44 and total points with 69.
- Sophomore Camille Belletete led the NESCAC during the regular season with 69 draw controls.
Tom Maguire, Beat Writer Bates College Women’s Lacrosse
Lacrosse is Awesome