Crawford, Garnet Sail Past Shorewomen in OT
SWARTHMORE, Pa. -- Garnet senior midfielder Katie Crawford completed a hat-trick by scoring the game-winning goal with 3:46 left in overtime to lift Swarthmore to a 12-11 Centennial Conference win over Washington (Md.) Tuesday evening at Clothier Field.
Swarthmore sophomore midfielder Marissa Schaffer also scored three goals, pushing her team-leading total to 30 while Crawford added an assist as the Garnet (7-6 overall, 1-4 CC) picked up their first Centennial win of the season.
The Shorewomen (6-8 overall, 2-4 CC) were led by sophomore attack Suzie Jakub who scored a game-high five goals while senior attack Caitlin Beane added three goals and an assist.
Swarthmore, playing consecutive home games for the first time all season, busted out of the gates by scoring six of the first seven goals. Crawford accounted for two of the scores while senior Lindsay Roth, freshman Abbe Muller, senior Athena Samaras, and sophomore Anna de Regt each picked up a score. The Garnet opened the 6-1 lead after sophomore defender Melissa Grigsby scooped up a one of her four ground balls and bolted across midfield. Grigsby dished off to de Regt who went to the front of the net, unimpeded, scoring her 17th goal of the season. It is the first point o f the season for Grigsby and the second helper of her career.
The Garnet took a 6-2 lead into the intermission, out-shooting the visitors 24-7 while dominating the draw controls (7-2).
The complexity of the contest changed in the second half. Garnet freshman Alex Gilbert-Bono put home her sixth goal of the season off a pass from junior Megan Sanborn at 21:29 to put the hometeam in front 7-2. Washington began to take care of the ball (the Shorewomen only converted 8 of 19 clear attempts in the first half), running off four straight goals (three by Jakub) to get with one goal at 14:15.
The Garnet came back with three of the next four goals--two from Schaffer--to take a 10-7 lead with 7:06. The Shorewomen kept coming; Jenna Gouck scored on a free-position shot and Caitlin Beane tallied an unassisted score at 4:29. Schaffer put the Garnet back up by two scores, 11-9, finishing off a feed from Crawford at 4:12.
Washington used Jakub's fifth score at 1:51 to get with one and then Melanie Rupprt tied the game with 36 seconds left in regulation after accepting a pass from Brittany Lambert.
Crawford netted the only goal of the extra session, her 14th of the year and first game-winner in 2007 (she has four in her career).
Swarthmore freshman goalie Allison Grein made six saves to pick up her first collegiate win while Washington counterpart Mollie Binotto made 19 stops.
The Garnet led the shot category by a 39-28 margin and won 19 draw controls to eight for the Shorewomen.
Swarthmore hits Clothier Field on Thursday, April 12 for a non-conference game with Widener University, set to start at 7:00 p.m.