Women’s Lacrosse: Garnet Fall to Bears, Secure Playoff Berth
COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. - The Swarthmore women's dropped their final Centennial Conference game, 17-9, to Ursinus on a wet Saturday afternoon. With #14 Dickinson defeating Washington 20-6 earlier Saturday, the Garnet (13-4, 5-4 CC) clinch the fifth seed in the 2006 Centennial Conference Championships.
It is the first Centennial playoff berth for Swarthmore; the Garnet will return to Ursinus on Wednesday, April 26th to take on the Bears in the opening round of the Centennial Conference playoffs. Ursinus has held the upper hand in the recent match-ups between the two schools, having won the last nine meetings.
Ursinus (11-5, 6-3 CC) got four goals each from Debbie Jensen and Natalie Schroeter while Kaitlin Glenn added three scores.
Swarthmore was led by junior midfielder Katie Crawford who scored four goals, tying her season high, while senior attack Heidi Fieselmann collected three goals.
Crawford opened the scoring just 47 seconds into Saturday's game, finishing off a pass from sophomore midfielder Megan Sanborn to take the 1-0 lead. The Bears responded with five straight goals over the next nine minutes before Garnet midfielder Lindsay Roth '07 ended the run with a free-position goal at 10:48.
Fieselmann made the score 5-3, scoring her first goal at 13:53 before Ursinus ran off five more scores to open a 10-3 lead at halftime.
Swarthmore looked to battle back in the second half, sandwiching two unassisted goals each by Fieselmann and Crawford around an Ursinus goal to cut the lead to 11-7 with 24 minutes left.
Ursinus struck for four goals in the next five minutes to build a necessary cushion.
Swarthmore out-shot the Bears 37-26, yet Ursinus controlled 17 of 26 draws and collected more ground balls (21-15) than the Garnet.
Bears goalie Allyson Shicora made 20 saves in goal, including 14 in the first half while Swarthmore net-minder Susannah Blair made six stops for the Garnet.
Crawford is enjoying her best year, setting career-highs, and leading the team, in goals (32) and points (38).
The Garnet conclude the 2006 regular season schedule on Tuesday, April 25 with a non-conference game with visiting Rosemont at 7:00 p.m.