SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University women's lacrosse team saw its five-game winning streak come to an end with a 9-5 setback against No. 22 Mercyhurst University Tuesday evening at Mihalik-Thompson Stadium.
 
The loss dampened the celebration for Tia Torchia, who tallied a hat trick to bring her career scoring total to 101 points, making her the 13th player in program history to reach the 100-point milestone.
 
The Lakers moved into sole possession of third place in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference standings and improved to 9-4 overall and 7-2 in league games with the win, while The Rock dropped to 10-4 overall and 6-4 in PSAC games. All four of SRU's losses this season have come to nationally ranked opponents and The Rock now find themselves in fifth place with two conference games to play.
 
SRU is one-game ahead of Indiana and Bloomsburg, who are currently tied for the sixth and final playoff spot, and SRU owns the tiebreak over both of those teams. Wins by The Rock over Gannon and Shippensburg in the final two games will guarantee a playoff berth for the second straight season, while a loss in either of those games could bring multiple tiebreak scenarios into play.
 
Slippery Rock finished Tuesday's game with a 25-21 edge in shots and carried the play for long stretches of both periods, but The Rock fired 11 shots off target, were whistled for a 30-13 discrepancy in fouls and couldn't contain Mercyhurst on the clear as the Lakers went nearly perfect at 20-of-21 on clear attempts. SRU was successful on 17-of-24 clears and failed to convert on all three of its free position attempts. Mercyhurst scored on 3-of-5 free positions in the second half and played man-up for a stretch of nearly five minutes late in the game after three straight yellow cards on SRU.
 
During that stretch of play, Mercyhurst broke a 3-3 tie open with two free position goals and pushed the advantage out to 9-4 before SRU tallied a late goal.
 
Torchia's hat trick paced a Rock attack that was desperately missing injured senior attackers Ally Culhane and Jasey Sanders. Bre Vodde and Tori Penders each added one goal and ShyAnne Toomer handed out two assists to account for the rest of the scoring.
 
Emily Bitka recorded 10 saves to mark the eighth time this season she has finished a game with double-digit saves. She also caused five turnovers and grabbed a game-high 11 ground balls.
 
Mercyhurst was led by Kristin Anderson with four goals and Lacey Netti with three goals and three assists. Raelyn Tiberio made nine saves in the victory, including five in the second half.
 
Slippery Rock will now turn its focus to a non-conference home game Friday against Charleston (W.Va.) with first draw set for 4 p.m. at Mihalik-Thompson Stadium.
 
 
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