Photo By Max Palmer
By Matt Vargo ‘
Nobody’s perfect, and the River Hawks showed that to the Royals.
The women’s lacrosse team defeated Scranton 9-8 in overtime on Saturday at Sassafras Field, handing the Royals their first loss in Landmark Conference play this season with goalie Aerin O’Brien leading the way with 14 saves and surpassing 200 saves for her collegiate career.
The milestone came with 8:48 to go the second period when O’Brien denied Scranton attacker Erin Reich to keep it a one-goal game, and Susquehanna (1105, 5-3) used that critical save to clear and tie the game a minute later at 3-3 off a Liv Owen free-position shot.
“It’s an incredible accomplishment, but in the moment, I didn’t give it too much thought since we were in the middle of a tight game,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien tallied 11 of her 14 saves in the first half alone as Susquehanna went into halftime tied 4-4 with the Landmark’s top seed, despite being outshot 22-13.
The second half continued to be a defensive struggle with neither side being able to pull away. The River Hawks led 6-4 early in the third after back-to-back goals by Hannah McNamara, but Scranton fought back scoring four of the next five goals in the period to lead 8-7 going into the fourth quarter,
Unfazed, O’Brien and the Susquehanna defense stepped up as the Royals were shut out the rest of the game. On offense, River Hawk attacker Abby Andrus scored the period’s only goal with 7:55 remaining to tie the game and send it to overtime. The extra period wouldn’t last long as McNamara scored her third goal of the game just 47 seconds in to cap off the upset.
“We always knew we were capable of this,” O’Brien said. “We had a couple unexpected tough losses earlier in the year. We knew we had to come out here and play our best game of the year, and that’s exactly what we did.”
The River Hawks now look to carry this momentum into their final game of the regular season on the road against Elizabethtown on Saturday. A win will clinch the fourth seed and a home playoff game in the quarterfinals of the Landmark Conference Tournament, which begins on Tuesday.
“We can’t get too ahead of ourselves,” O’Brien said. “We want a home playoff game, we’ve wanted that since the beginning of the season, and we got to finish the job. If we continue to stick together and play for each other like coach said, then we’ll have no problem pulling it off.”