ADA, Ohio — The Marietta College women's lacrosse team held a narrow lead all throughout their road contest with Ohio Northern University, but lost their two goal lead in the final seconds of regulation. The Pioneers got a late goal in overtime, though, and claimed a 14-13 win Friday (April 7) evening. Marietta improves to 7-4 overall and 1-1 in the Ohio Athletic Conference. Ohio Northern is now 6-6 overall and 0-3 in the OAC.
"We're pumped! Big win for our program this year," Marietta head coach
Malory Nadrah said. "We've had our sights set on today since the fall. The team did a great job executing the defensive game plan. We had some great finishes from a lot of different players on offensive end and excellent grit on the draw. Entire team win! So proud of Nat and Maggie coming up clutch for us as the clock ran out."
Marietta scored in the opening minute of the game when
Mallory Wiles (Columbus, Ohio/Worthington Kilbourne) found the net and
Hope Adams (Delaware, Ohio/Bishop Watterson) tacked on another score a minute later. ONU's Meredith Miller got the Polar Bears on the board with a score at the 11:00 mark, but Wiles and Adams both scored again to give the Pioneers a 4-1 lead. Ohio Northern cut into the lead with two scores, but Marietta again answered with scores from
Lindy Brobeck (Pickerington, Ohio/Pickerington) and
Maggie Downard (Canal Fulton, Ohio/Jackson). The Pioneers closed the first quarter leading 6-3.
After an Ohio Northern goal to open the second quarter, the Pioneers recorded a goal from
Kyla Andreas (Shirley, N.Y./Longwood) to push the lead to three. The Polar Bears came back to score the next three tallies, though, and tied it at seven with 4:30 left in the half. Wiles added another goal to close the first half scoring and Marietta led 8-7 going into intermission.
The two teams traded shots all throughout the third period, but Wiles scored in the final minute to give Marietta a 12-10 lead going into the final period. Makenzie Dyott scored with 6 minutes of regulation remaining to put the lead at 13-11. The Polar Bears did not give up and scored two goals, one with 14 seconds left on the clock, and the two teams had to settle the game in overtime.
No team was able to gain an advantage in overtime, but Marietta finally was able to find the net in the closing seconds as
Maggie Downard (Canal Fulton, Ohio/Jackson) converted a great
Natalie Cocco (McMurray, Pa./Peters Township) pass into a game winning score. The Pioneers claimed a dramatic 14-13 victory in overtime.
Abby May (Randolph, Ohio/St. Vincent-St. Mary) played the whole way in goal for the Pioneers and allowed 13 goals and stopped six shots.
Wiles led the scoring with four goals and Adams finished with three scores.
Alayna Francis (Irwin, Pa./Norwin) led all players with 10 draw controls. Downard, Andreas, and Francis played well defensively, collecting two caused turnovers apiece.
Marietta travels to battle Capital University on Wednesday (April 12) at 7 p.m.
Fans can follow all the Pioneer teams all year long at
pioneers.marietta.edu. You can also follow the Pioneers on Facebook at
facebook.com/MariettaCollege and @MariettaPioneer on Twitter and Instagram.
