SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University women's lacrosse team saw its season come to an end with a 9-7 defeat against Mercyhurst University in a Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division game Saturday from Mihalik-Thompson Stadium.
 
The Mercyhurst win gives SRU and the Lakers matching 6-6 records in PSAC West play, but Mercyhurst earns the tiebreaker with a season sweep over SRU and takes the third and final playoff spot in the PSAC West.
 
Slippery Rock finishes the season with a 10-7 overall record for its seventh 10-win season in program history and wraps up a 10-win season for the second straight year. Mercyhurst improves to 8-8 overall with its 11th straight win over SRU, seven of which have now been decided by three goals or fewer.
 
The Lakers took advantage of costly SRU turnovers in the first period to jump out to a 5-2 lead after the first 15 minutes and forced The Rock to play catch up for most of the rest of the game.
 
SRU outscored Mercyhurst 4-2 in the second quarter and leveled the game at 6-6, but turned the ball over inside the final minute to hand Mercyhurst a breakaway. The Lakers took advantage of the shooting space violation and scored on the free position with eight seconds left in the second quarter to take a 7-6 lead into halftime.
 
Both teams had opportunities in the third quarter, but neither could find the back of the net with both goalies recording three saves to send the game to the fourth quarter with Mercyhurst still leading 7-6.
 
Slippery Rock tied the game at 7-7 with 12:51 to play after a goal from Lauren Searles, but the tie would only last a little more than three minutes.
 
Mercyhurst's Victoria Gottorff broke free and scored an unassisted goal with 9:21 to play and then added an insurance tally with another unassisted score with 5:35 to play.
 
Slippery Rock had chances to claw back into the game, but struggled with turnovers in the final period, finishing with four turnovers and five shots in the fourth quarter.
 
Unforced turnovers were an issue all day for SRU, which finished 16-of-20 on clear attempts with 16 total turnovers, only seven of which were caused by Mercyhurst. The Lakers also turned it over 16 times with 11 caused turnovers from SRU, but were a perfect 19-of-19 on clear attempts.
 
Mercyhurst finished with a 27-22 advantage in total shots and a 17-16 edge in shots on goal. The Rock posted advantages of 11-9 in draw controls and 23-19 in ground balls.
 
Slippery Rock was paced by Camryn Whipple with a hat trick with all three goals coming in the first quarter. Whipple, who had 12 points at Edinboro earlier this week, finished the week with 15 points on five goals and 10 assists over two games.
 
Searles and Olivia Fox each tallied one goal and one assist, while Eryn Little and Brooke Wisniewski each scored one goal and Rachel Mahoney handed out one assist to cap the point scorers.
 
Senior Alexa Juska led the defense in her final game at SRU with three caused turnovers, while fellow senior Charleigh Rondeau pulled down a game-high seven draw controls to go along with two caused turnovers and three ground balls. Rondeau leaves the SRU program as the all-time career record holder in draw controls with 360 in 50 games played.
 
Gillian O'Rourke made eight saves in goal, including five in the second half, to keep The Rock alive until the final stages.
 
Mercyhurst got three goals and one assist from Gottorff and two goals each from Rachel Plumley and Maggie Newton. Paige Maneri made nine saves to earn the win in goal.
 
Slippery Rock will now turn its focus to the offseason with an optimistic future as the team loses only Rondeau, Juska and senior defender Sara Danowski, who missed the last half of the season with an injury.
 


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