The Quinnipiac women’s lacrosse team took on NEC foe Long Island on Sunday March 29, defeating them by a margin of 12 goals. The game started close and stayed close until the Bobcats pulled away in the last 10 minutes. The win brings Quinnipiac’s record to 5-2 overall and 2-1 in the conference, while Blackbirds drop to 2-7 overall and 1-3 in the NEC.
Right from the opening draw, Quinnipiac took control of the ball and distributed it well. Freshman Marissa Caraleo put the Bobcats on the board first just 40 seconds into the game, but she was just getting started. About a minute and a half later, Katie Latonick added Quinnipiac’s second goal to give the Bobcats the early lead.
On the other end of the field, the Blackbirds were defenseless to the defensive lockdown by the Bobcats. The Bobcats created turnovers and drove the ball down to their end of the field, where Caraleo scored her second goal assisted by Latonick, putting the Bobcats up 3-0. Long Island finally got on the board five minutes in thanks to a goal from Christie Wienchowski. Wienchowski added another goal a few minutes later to make the game 3-2.
In response, Quinnipiac’s Tiffany Manzi slipped the ball past the Long Island goalie for the goal. Two minutes after Manzi’s goal, Caraleo scored her third goal of the period to put the Bobcats up 5-2. Thanks to their good ball movement, Quinnipiac tacked onto their lead with two more goals from Caraleo, and goals from Manzi, Ashley Valentine, Erin Coffey and Devon Gibney. It wasn’t until there was 26 seconds left in the half that the Blackbirds added another point to bring the score to 12-3 at the half.
At the opening draw of the second half, Long Island came out hard and took control of the ball. The Blackbirds tacked on three quick goals to bring the score to 12-6. The Bobcats responded with a goal from Lauren Matuszczak, who slapped the ball past Simonian for the goal. Long Island responded with two goals to cut QU’s lead to 5 in a back and forth battle. The Bobcats finally broke through the Long Island defense with another goal from Gibney, her second of the day.
From then on the Bobcats took control and scored five straight goals, three from Valentine, Caraleo added her sixth goal and Manzi her third, to extend their lead to 19-8. After that scoring spree, Long Island responded with a goal of their own to bring the score to 19-9. Then Quinnipiac’s Nicole Fiore scored to put the Bobcats up 20-9.
QU kept the pressure on thanks to a goal from Lyndsey Banach. In addition, Valentine added her fourth goal of the afternoon to make it 22-9, Bobcats. With less than two minutes left, Long Island got into the double digits with their 10th goal, which brought the game to its final score, 22-10.
Caraleo totaled six goals on the day and added an assist.
“We moved the ball very well on attack today, waited for the open cutter and did a good job of finishing the ball,” Caraleo said. “We’ve been working hard in practice every day, keeping our heads up and not letting last week’s loss get us down.”
The women’s lacrosse team will take on Bryant on Friday, April 3, at 4 p.m. at the Quinnipiac Field Hockey and Lacrosse Turf Field.
