NORTON, Mass. — Senior forward Anda Brown (South Woodstock, Vt.) tallied the game-winner with a tip-in with just 4:28 to play in the match to give the Wheaton College (Mass.) field hockey team a 2-1 victory over visiting University of Southern Maine this evening at Nordin Field on the Wheaton campus in Norton, Mass.
The Lyons improve to 6-12 on the season, while the Huskies fall to 12-7.
Southern Maine finished the match with a 14-11 shot advantage, including all six shots taken in the third quarter, but Wheaton controlled the action when it mattered most with a 7-2 margin in the fourth quarter. The Lyons owned a healthy 7-1 disparity in penalty corners and scored the game-winner on a penalty corner situation.
Junior midfielder Macey Poitras-Cote (Northborough, Mass.) sent the insert pass to classmate Lydia Gaudreau (Gorham, Maine), who fired a shot ticketed for the cage on the left side. Brown altered the course of the attempt with a tip that resulted in her team-leading seventh goal of the season to give Wheaton a 2-1 edge with less than five minutes to play in the match.
The Lyons' defense held the Huskies without a shot in the final minutes to prevent any chance for a tie game.
Wheaton opened the scoring just 3:17 into the match to take a 1-0 first-quarter lead. First year forward Ally Slicer (Waterford, Maine) sent a cross, from just outside the arc, to junior forward Delia Knox (Cumberland Center, Maine), who collected the ball and fired a shot through the defense and into the right corner for her fifth goal of the season.
The Lyons' defense held Southern Maine without a goal for the balance of the first half, but Southern Maine finally broke through just 2:35 into the third quarter on a flukey goal that bounced just the right way for the visitors. Junior defender Julia Edwards (Gorham, Maine) collected a loose ball in Wheaton's defensive zone and sent a cross headed toward the arc, where a Lyon defender layed down her stick to stop it, but the ball skipped over the stick and inside the arc. The ball found USM junior forward Sage Drinkwater (Steep Falls, Maine), who swung her stick for a shot that ricocheted off the Lyon keeper and into the air. Junior forward Abigail Chartier (Lewiston, Maine) batted the ball out of the air and into the back of the cage for her 10th marker of the season. The game remained tied at 1-1 for nearly 23 minutes before Brown's score gave Wheaton the eventual game-winner.
Senior keeper Emma Lapreziosa (Bowdoinham, Maine) finished the match with 10 saves for the Lyons, while Julianna Kiklis (York, Maine) recorded a pair of stops for the Huskies.
Wheaton returns to action on Saturday, October 28 when it heads to Northampton, Mass. to take on New England Women's & Men's Athletic Conference rival Smith College at 12:00 p.m., while Southern Maine hosts Little East Conference foe Western Connecticut State University on the same day at the same time.
