Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. – Powered by 10 different Mavericks scoring, the No. 1 seeded Mercy College women's lacrosse team earned a 19-7 win over No. 4 seeded D'Youville University in an East Coast Conference (ECC) Women's Lacrosse Championship Semifinal on Thursday afternoon at Mercy Field.
The Mavericks (13-4) have won seven games in a row and defeat the Saints (9-8) for the second time this season. Mercy advances to the Final for the fifth straight time and will face the winner of Roberts Wesleyan/Molloy on Saturday, May 7th at 12 p.m.
Senior Juliana Keenan (Bethpage, N.Y./Plainedge) led the way for Mercy with a game-high six points on four goals and two assists. Senior Taylor Bishop (West Milford, N.J./West Milford) added three goals and an assist and graduate student Briana Corace (Mahopac, N.Y./Mahopac) had two goals and two assists. Freshman Leah Hansen (Greenlawn, N.Y./Harborfields) had two goals and an assist and sophomore Kelly Rosenfeld (Massapequa, N.Y./Massapequa) netted two goals. Senior Kaitlyn Grzelaczyk (Seaford, N.Y./Seaford) had two goals and senior Kerri Cummings (Islip, N.Y./Islip) had a goal and two assists. Sophomore Christina Lopreato (Mahopac, N.Y./Mahopac) had a goal and six draw controls and freshman Leena Moussa (Wantagh, N.Y./Wantagh) also had a goal. Freshman Lindsey Shimborske (Farmingdale, N.Y./Farmingdale) had a goal, a game-high six ground balls, five caused turnovers and six draw controls. Senior Alexandra Bigilin (Massapequa Park, N.Y./Kellenberg Memorial) had three caused turnovers and senior Madeline Garvalosa (Seaford, N.Y./St. Anthony's) made six saves in 54:27 minutes of action to earn the win.
D'Youville was led by Marissa Malvaso who had a game-high five goals. Brinn Stworzydlak made 15 saves to take the loss.
Keenan, Rosenfeld and Hansen opened the game with three straight goals to give Mercy a 3-0 lead with 9:35 left in the opening quarter. Malvaso made it 3-1 with 1:36 left in the quarter. However, Corace and Lopreato recorded back-to-back goals to close out the quarter, giving Mercy a 5-1 lead after one quarter.
The Saints scored the first two goals of the second quarter to make it 5-3 with 13:37 left in the half. Bishop later made it 6-3 after a woman-down goal at the 8:32 mark. D'Youville answered with two straight goals to cut Mercy's lead to one, 6-5, with 6:52 on the clock. Hansen and Keenan ensued with back-to-back goals to put the Mavericks up 8-5 with 29 seconds left. Malvaso scored the final goal of the quarter to cut Mercy's lead to 8-6 at halftime.
Mercy scored all five goals in the third quarter to take a 13-6 lead after three quarters. Cummings got the run started at the 13:57 mark of the quarter and Rosenfeld, Grzelaczyk, Corace and Keenan also found the back of the net to give Mercy a seven-goal lead.
Shimborske, Keenan, Grzelaczyk and Moussa opened the fourth quarter with goals to give Mercy a 17-6 lead with 6:03 remaining. Malvaso finally got the Saints on the scoreboard in the second half with her final goal of the day at the 4:36 mark to make it 17-7. Bishop finished off the win for the Mavericks with back-to-back goals to give Mercy a 19-7 victory.
Mercy held a 47-19 edge in shots, a 26-14 edge in ground balls and a 19-10 edge in draw controls.
