Dartmouth Women's Lacrosse Edged by #6 Duke

Sunday, May 6

Duke

12:00 p.m.

Dartmouth College

Duke

5/6/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Lacrosse

By: Dartmouth

Boxscore

Durham, N.C. ? The Dartmouth women's lacrosse team lost a tough 18-14 battle to No. 6 Duke in its final regular season contest today.

Dartmouth held an 8-7 advantage at halftime of the contest, but a five-goal flurry in the opening minutes of the second period gave Duke all it would need to take the victory.

The Blue Devils struck first when Carolyn Davis found the goal at 28:26. Jen Pittman (New Canaan, Conn.) evened it up for the Big Green with an unassisted tally at 18:57, but Duke answered back just 12 seconds later to go up 2-1.

Kristen Barry (Duxbury, Mass.) tied the game at the 16:16 mark off a feed from senior Sarah Szefi (Pittsburgh, Pa.) before Duke jumped to a 4-2 lead with a pair of unanswered tallies. The Big Green buckled down, however, and scored three goals in just two and a half minutes to take its first lead of the day, up 5-4 at 10:10. Pittman, Szefi and Katherine Chiusano (Medford, N.J.) each scored during the Dartmouth run.

Duke's Leigh Jester added back-to-back goals to regain the lead for the Devils, but Dartmouth went on to outscore the home team 3-2 in the final two minutes to gain the 8-7 halftime lead.

Rachel Sanford and Caroline Cryer each scored twice along with a tally from Danielle Kachulis to inflate Duke's lead to 12-8 by the 21:22 mark of the second half.

Szefi scored off a feed from Chiusano followed by Barry's third goal of the day assisted by senior Whitney Douthett (Newtown, Pa.) to pull Dartmouth back into it, down 12-10 at 19:47.

The two squads traded goals during the next nine minutes, with both Big Green tallies coming from Chiusano, who finished with four goals on the day. With Dartmouth hanging around, down 14-12 at 9:42, Duke ripped two quick goals to regain a more solid advantage.

Chiusano found Eliza Bennett (Darien, Conn.) at 6:21 before Duke's Carolyn Davis added a pair of unassisted goals to secure the win for the Blue Devils, up 18-13. Dartmouth's Szefi, a senior, funneled a pass to Bennett, a freshman, for the game's dramatic final goal with just one second remaining.

Duke peppered Dartmouth goalkeeper Julie Wadland (Andover, Mass.) with 33 shots on goal but the freshman made 15 saves on the day. Her counterpart, Kim Imbesi, faced 21 shots and snagged seven saves.

Chiusano and Szefi each finished with six points to pace the Dartmouth offense while Douthett added two draw controls, two caused turnovers and three assists in the midfield.

Caroline Cryer paced Duke with six goals and Michelle Manser patrolled the midfield, snagging four groundballs and three caused turnovers.

The Big Green drops to 9-7 (4-3 Ivy) while the Blue Devils improve to 14-3.