March 3, 2007

BOX SCORE

FARMVILLE, Va. -- Longwood University women’s lacrosse dropped a 20-9 decision to the visiting Denver Pioneers Sunday afternoon.  The Lancers fall to 0-4 on the season while Denver goes to 3-1.  Longwood will return to action on Saturday, March 10 when they host West Chester and Navy in two exhibition match-ups.  The Lancers will face West Chester at 9:30 a.m. and take on Navy at 1 p.m..
    
Denver opened the scoring at the 29:20 mark, as Megan Carver scored the first of her two goals less than a minute in, to grab the early one goal lead.  The Pioneers padded their lead to two goals after Ali Flurry snuck a shot past Longwood’s goalie Jennifer Holliday/Gaithersburg, Md (Quince Orchard) with 24:28 to go in the first half.  The Lancers answered right back on the draw control, which was won by Cathleen Strain/Alexandria (Mount Vernon) who took it all the way down and ripped a shot past the Pioneers’ keeper to bring Longwood within one.  Flurry tallied back-to-back goals to push Denver’s lead to 5-2, that was answered by Strain, who recorded her second of three first half goals with 7:25 to go in the half.  Strain tallied her third goal with 2:15 to go before the break, to bring the Lancers within three.  The Pioneers however put two more goals on the board on free position opportunities to head into the break with a 9-4 lead.
    
Longwood struck first out of the break, as Kathleen Barry/Annandale (W.T. Woodson) came from behind the net and fired a shot just inside the left post to bring Longwood within five with 28:38 left in the game.   The Pioneers were able to take advantage of two more free position opportunities early in the second half to build an 11-5 lead with 27:14 to go in the game.  
    
Strain and Lauren Barnaba/Bel Air, Md. (The John Carroll School) brought the deficit back to four goals, after Barnaba was able to put a shot past keeper Katie Gold with 19:24 left in the game.  Denver took the game over from there, as the visiting Pioneers scored a goal off the following draw twenty seconds later and went on to score four more to jump out to a 16-7 lead.  Barry recorded her second goal of the game on with 11:36 to go in the game to put the score at 16-8 before the Pioneers went on to outscore Longwood 4-1 in the final ten minutes of the game.  Holliday finished the game 14 saves in 53:27 of action while Eliza Coughter/Charlottesville (Charlottesville) tallied one save in 6:33 of time in net.  The Pioneers were anchored by Becky Childs in the first half and Gold in the second, each making five saves in the match-up.