April 22, 2008

Final Stats

VILLANOVA, Pa. - Erin Rawley scored seven goals to lead the U.S. Naval Academy to a 19-8 victory over the Villanova Wildcats in a women's lacrosse contest played here on a comfortable spring evening at Villanova Stadium. Navy improves to 13-3 with the triumph while the `Cats drop to 4-12 on the campaign with the regular season finale ahead on Friday night here.

Navy seized the early edge with two goals in the first 3:15 of the contest. Katrina Nietsch fired a shot past Wildcat goalie Maggie Langan at 27:23 and Rawlick then scored her first goal at 26:45. But Villanova answered with a Taryn McKenna goal - with an assist to freshman Mia Naccarato - and one from the stick of junior Katie Stone at 23:55 to even things at two.

However, the Mids grabbed the lead for good at 21:29 when Rawlick scored on a free position shot. Mary Ruttum, Nietsch and Meg Decker added goals for Navy before Stone scored her second of a feed from freshman Nora Wallace for the `Cats at 10:22. That narrowed the gap to 6-3.

Navy scored three more times while VU tallied just once over the final 10 minutes of the first half to make the count 9-4 in favor of the Mids at halftime.

Rawlick picked up two more goals to extend the lead to 11-4 early in the second half before McKenna got one back for the Wildcats at 26:44 to make it 11-5. Rawlick then scored two more and Amanda Towey added another to push the Navy advantage to 14-5 with 21:44 left. Wallace notched an unassisted goal on a long run off a draw control for VU at 21:35. Samantha McKillip and McKenna rounded out the Villanova scoring. The final score was 19-8 in favor of the Mids. Navy owned a 38-14 edge in shots on the night. Langan made three saves in net for Villanova while Natalie Blandon made three in net for Navy.

Villanova closes out its regular season on Friday night against Delaware at 6:30 p.m.