The lacrosse team held off the Stetson Hatters in a highly competitive matchup on Saturday, April 8, resulting in a final score of 14-12.
Freshman Shannon Harrington witnessed a new career high of six goals during the game against Stetson. The Owls were able to withstand the Hatters and pick up their first conference win of the season.
Harrington’s former career high was four goals. She posted the first goal of the second half. Harrington attempted a total of eight shots.
Hannah Davis finished the game with two assists and four goals. Hannah Barth collected two goals while Bailey Wilson added 12 draw controls.
Stetson maintained an early lead against the Owls. Harrington put the Owls on the board with the first goal of the day. The Hatters were up 4-1 with five minutes left in the first quarter. Harrington scored her second goal of the game with 1:45 on the clock. To wrap up the quarter, Harrington put up an additional two goals, tying the game and bringing KSU 4-4 with the Hatters.
In the second quarter, Harrington collected two more goals to reach her career high of six goals and propelled the Owls to a 7-4 advantage against Stetson.
Stetson closed in on KSU by scoring a goal, stopping KSU’s run and bringing the score to 7-5. The Owls began a new run after scoring three unanswered goals and pushing up the lead 10-5 with 12:03 left in the third quarter. The Owls would then find a groove to outscore the Hatters 6-3 with the remaining time left in the third quarter to go up 14-8.
The Hatters fought to rally back as the team held KSU from scoring throughout the entire fourth quarter. Stetson’s attempt at a comeback with four goals in the final quarter was unsuccessful, ending the game with a final score of 14-12.
“We knew it was going to be really bad outside, so we actually did a lot to prepare for it,” KSU Head Coach Laura Maness said. “We practice yesterday with wet lacrosse balls and wet lacrosse sticks to try to simulate what we needed to do. This helped us stay locked in knowing that it was going to get sloppy at times.”
Maness said, “We have been working on improving our free position opportunities and it was really nice to see today that it paid off. It makes other teams have to think twice about whether or not they want to foul us.”
In lacrosse’s next matchup, the team will go on the road to face Liberty April 20 at 1 p.m.
