Since 2011 the Shippensburg University lacrosse team has started the season off with a loss.
This year the Raiders notched an exciting 14–11 victory over Shepherd University behind an outstanding from attacker Kayla Dalzell.
Dalzell led the Raiders with a career-high four-goal performance in Wednesday night’s outing.
The Raiders came out of the gate fast, netting six unanswered goals within 11 minutes of the start of the game.
SU’s Amanda Krok started the scoring spree in the first 41 seconds of the game with a shot from the circle. Dalzell scored the next goal for the Raiders followed by Bennett Widlake. Dalzell notched the next two goals and Annemarie Cericola ended the surge with her first goal as a Raider.
SU held Shepherd to a 6-0 deficit with under 10 minutes left to play in the first half until Shepherd’s Hunter Morris answered back with a goal for the Rams with 8:22 to go. The rest of the Shepherd team quickly followed and scored three more consecutive goals within the next two minutes, narrowing the deficit to 6–4 with just over six minutes left to play in the first half.
Each team scored one more time within the final six minutes of play. The Raiders held a 7–5 lead over the Rams at halftime.
Both teams went head-to-head in the opening minutes of the second half with the Raiders scoring two goals and Shepherd netting one in a three and a half minute time frame.
Dalzell picked up her fourth goal of the game with an assist from Courtney Kennedy, putting the Raiders up 10–6 with 25:49 remaining in the game.
Kennedy had three assists Wednesday evening, all of which were in Dalzell’s favor.
The Raiders notched three more unanswered goals in the following 15 minutes, leaving Shepherd trailing by seven. However, Shepherd came back ferociously in the remaining 10 minutes, scoring five goals, three of which were in the final five minutes of the game.
The Raider defense hunkered down and put a stop to the Rams’ late game surge, solidifying their first victory of the 2014 season.
SU is scheduled to face off against the Merrimack College Warriors March 9 at noon at SU’s Robb Sports Complex.
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