Box Score
Video
SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University women's lacrosse team put forth a dominant effort en route to a 18-7 victory over Tiffin University in non-conference action Tuesday night at N. Kerr Thompson Stadium.
In a game that featured a 40 minute lightning delay during the first half, Slippery Rock came away with an impressive win to increase its current modern-era school record for wins in a season to 10. The Rock is now 10-6 overall entering the final game of the season Thursday night against Edinboro. Tiffin dropped to 7-9 overall.
The most notable line in the box score was draw controls, where both teams entered the game ranked in the top-three in the nation. Tiffin, which led all Division II schools with 17.6 draw controls per game, was held to just five as Slippery Rock dominated the draw, 22-5.
The Rock finished the game with advantages of 42-14 in total shots, 32-25 in ground balls and 14-10 in caused turnovers. SRU was successful on 10-of-13 clear attempts, while the Dragons were successful on 17-of-25 attempts.
Amy Halls led all scorers in the game with five points on three goals and two assists. She also added four ground balls and four draw controls to her stat line.
Casey Quinn also pulled in four draw controls to go along with two goals that brought her career tally to 113, moving her into second all-time at SRU behind Halls' 164.
Emma VanDenburg scored two goals and handed out two assists for a four point night, while
Lauren Laubach finished with a hat trick and four draw controls. Other multi-point efforts included two goals and one assist from
Alexis Slutsky, two goals from
Hannah Bonfiglio, one goal and two assists from
Katie Roof and one goal and one assist from
Brittany Jaillet.
Alison Rusnak scored her first goal of the season late in the game after moving up from defense to attack and
Morgan Pettit also scored one goal to cap the SRU scoring.
Kat Elkins earned the win in goal after making two saves and allowing six goals.
Ariel Gilbert played the final 9:16 of the game and had her best performance of the season, stopping two shots at close range and allowing one goal on a breakaway.
Kaitlyn Hafdell led the defensive effort with four caused turnovers.
Tiffin was led by Alexandria Quast with three goals and one assist, an off night for her as she entered the game as the number one goal scorer and point scorer in the nation with 81 goals in 15 games. Taylor DeMaio added two goals and one assist.
Madeline Kane took the loss between the pipes, allowing 18 goals and recording 11 saves.
Tuesday's game was all Slippery Rock from the start as the hosts opened up a 3-0 advantage early before a lightning strike forced a stoppage with 21:03 to play in the opening half. When play resumed, SRU struck almost immediately to push the lead out to 4-0.
Tiffin answered with a goal at the 19:26 mark, but Slippery Rock tallied the next two goals to push the lead out to 6-1 with 17:46 to play before the break. After another Tiffin score, The Rock closed the half with two more goals to lead 8-2 at halftime.
Slippery Rock kept the momentum by opening the second half with a 5-0 run to break the game open, 13-2, a deficit Tiffin could never recover from.
The Rock will close the 2011 season Thursday night when they host Edinboro in a Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference match at 7 p.m. A win in that game would give SRU 11 wins and tie the all-time school record for wins in a season, set by the 1983 team that went 11-5-1.
Notes: Halls goals improved her season tally to 56, one shy of her own school record of 57 set during her freshman season … Halls and Quinn now own the top-two spots on SRU's scoring ledgers and each has one full season left to play … Slippery Rock entered Tuesday's game ranked third in the nation in draw controls at 17.2 per game … Halls ranked fifth in goal scoring.
