Mercer University
Long Island
Women's Lacrosse Tops LIU-Brooklyn With Last-Second Goal
3/7/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Lacrosse
MACON, Ga. – Kate Leone led the Bears with four goals on the night, but none was as important as her buzzer-beater to give the Mercer women's lacrosse team a 15-14 win over LIU-Brooklyn on Saturday evening at Five Star Stadium.
Hannah Bair also had a team-high four points off two goals and two assists, while also added two draw controls and a ground ball. Leone also had two ground balls, two caused turnovers and a draw control.
Audrey Allen set a program record with six draw controls, while also digging up 2 ground balls and causing a turnover. Fiona Stockton led Mercer with four ground balls and three caused turnovers, and also had five draw controls and an assist.
"I give our team a lot of credit for going out there, sticking with the game plan and playing hard," said Head Coach Eve Levinson. "We talked a lot this week about wanting it more – wanting the ball more, wanting the win more. As evidenced by our last-second win, they didn't give up for one moment. They did a great job and we're looking forward to keeping this momentum going."
LIU-Brooklyn (1-1) took a 4-0 lead with just 5:14 off the clock, and looked poised to run away with the game. Mercer (2-1) answered with four quick goals of its own to knot the score with 18:48 remaining in the first half.
A pair of goals from the Blackbirds sandwiched a Mercer goal to give LIU-Brooklyn a 6-5 advantage with 8:22 on the clock. The Bears rattled off another four unanswered goals to take their largest lead of the half, 9-6, with 4:13 left in the period. Another goal for each of the teams gave Mercer a 10-7 lead for halftime.
LIU-Brooklyn scored two of the first three goals of the second half to cut Mercer's lead to 11-9 with 19:45 left in the game. The Bears used a 3-0 spurt to take their largest lead of the game, 14-9, with 14:26 on the clock. After nearly eight scoreless minutes, LIU-Brooklyn fired off two goals in under a minute to put the score a 14-11 with 6:10 still to play.
The Blackbirds added three more goals to tie the game 14-14 with just eight ticks left on the clock. With overtime looming, the teams headed to the draw circle for one last time in regulation. Stockton came up with the draw control and chucked the ball to Leone, who went low and found the back of the net as the buzzer sounded to give Mercer it's most thrilling win in program history.
Mercer will hit the road for the first time this season and face Campbell on Tuesday, March 10 at 4 p.m. in Buies Creek, N.C.
For all the latest information on Mercer women's lacrosse, please visit MercerBears.com or, for up-to-the-minute updates, follow Mercer lacrosse on Twitter at @MercerWLax or www.twitter.com/MercerWLAX.
NUMBERS OF NOTE
- Kate Leone tied the single-game program record with four goals to lead Mercer offensively. Tori Blakeman added three goals, two ground balls and a caused turnover.
- Lindsey Zeltwanger had two goals and an assist for three points, while also notching three ground balls, two draw controls and a caused turnover.
- Hannah Bair had two goals and two assists to tie Leone with a team-leading four points. Bair also grabbed two draw controls and a ground ball.
- Holly Berns added a goal, and Meghan Segreti found the back of the net twice, while also tallying three draw controls and a caused turnover.
- Fiona Stockton led Mercer with four ground balls and three caused turnovers, while grabbing five draw controls and assisting on the game-winning goal. Audrey Allen set a single-game program record with six draw controls, while adding a goal, two ground balls and a caused turnover.
- Erica Coyne picked up three ground balls and a draw control, while Nova Ward recorded two ground balls and a caused turnover. In goal, Haleigh Wurzel made 13 saves for the Bears.
- Mercer dominated the draw control, 21-9, but the Blackbirds outshot the Bears, 30-23, and picked up more ground balls, 30-21.
- The fastest consecutive goals by opposing teams in NCAA history is six seconds, set by Yale and Virginia in 1993. Mercer's final goal came eight seconds after LIU-Brooklyn's, narrowly missing the record books.
