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ROME, Ga. - The Ursuline College lacrosse team led by three goals late but couldn't hang on and lost to host Shorter University by a score of 14-13 on Wednesday (March 11) night.
The Arrows are now 0-2 on the young year while Shorter won its first game of the season to improve to 1-3.
Just as she did in Monday's (March 9) season opener, sophomore Natalie Pachinger opened the scoring. Less than two minutes into the match, UC led 1-0 and the lead grew when freshman Celeste Friel scored her fifth goal of the season to put the Arrows in front by two.
Shorter's Ashley Nuqui scored 4:14 into the game to cut the lead in half but UC sophomore Breana Cervantes answered 1:20 later to extend the lead back to two.
The Hawks scored the game's next two goals to tie the contest at three but Friel's second goal of the game gave the Arrows back the lead and then sophomore Maddie Kipp scored to give UC some breathing room.
Shorter wouldn't go away easily and countered with two more strikes to knot the game at five before Friel gave UC a 6-5 advantage. After a Shorter goal with 5:14 to go in the first, Pachinger closed the first period scoring to give Ed Karasek's bunch a 7-6 lead at the intermission.
The Arrows came out firing to start the second half and scored the first three goals of the second frame. Freshman Cydney Bartlet scored and then she assisted on sophomore Sarah Kiefer's goal. Sophomore Anika Aberegg's goal with 23:32 gave UC a 10-6 lead.
Again, Shorter showed some resiliency and went on a 3-0 run to get within one at 10-9. Friel scored again with 12:36 remaining and then Shorter's Mia Wiggins answered 1:15 after that to make it a one-goal game ... again.
UC sophomore Grace Savage and Kipp put the ball in the back of the net to stake Ursuline to a 13-10 lead with 8:50 to go, but Shorter scored the final four goals to jump in front 14-13 with 2:13 to go. The last SU goal, scored by Crystal Marshall, came with the Hawks a player up after UC was whistled for a yellow card at the 2:21 mark.
The Arrows couldn't come up with the equalizer and fell to 0-2 despite the valiant effort.
Sophomore goalkeeper Lauren Cole made nine stops, one more than the Shorter tandem of Nicole Kube and Catherine Mitchner.
Shorter outshot Ursuline 30-21 and had five fewer turnovers (28-23).
The Arrows will wrap up their Spring Break trip on Friday (March 13) at
Centre College (1-4). That contest will start at 6:00 p.m. and will be covered with
free live stats and
free live video.