Women's Lacrosse Wins Big South Regular Season Championship

Saturday, April 29

Buies Creek, NC

1 PM

Mercer University

15-2, 9-0BSC

Campbell

11-6, 7-2BSC

Mercer

Campbell

Women's Lacrosse Wins Big South Regular Season Championship

4/29/2023 7:47:00 PM | Women's Lacrosse

Box Score

Mercer defeats Campbell; goes undefeated, 9-0, in Big South Play this season

BUIES CREEK, N.C. – Mercer women's lacrosse defeated Campbell, 14-11 to win the Big South regular season championship on Saturday afternoon from Buies Creek, North Carolina.

With the win, the Bears finished the regular season 15-2 overall and went undefeated in Big South play at 9-0. Mercer also went undefeated in games outside of Macon this season, going 9-0 in away games.

In a matchup of the top two teams in the Big South, with the winner earning the No. 1 seed and hosting the Big South Tournament, Mercer came out on top with a big day from senior goalie Kate Vanderlinde.

Vanderlinde, after being named Big South Defensive Player of the Week last week, made a career-high 13 saves including several saves in key moments of the game. She finished the game with a .542 save percentage.

Shannon Urey and Gabby DiVirgilio led Mercer offensively as each had hat tricks to pace the Bears. Hannah Lind and Maddi Koury were other Mercer players who scored at least two goals in the game.

In her first career start, Gabby Brisbin scored her first career goal for Mercer in the first half.

Both Mercer and Campbell put 24 shots on goal in the game and each team had 13 turnovers. Campbell had the advantage in draw controls winning 17 to Mercer's 12. Kayla Soltys led Mercer with seven draw controls and also had two assists on the day.

Maddi Koury had two goals and three assists for a 5-point day. Emma Pizzo had three caused turnovers, three ground balls, and two draw controls.

HOW IT HAPPENED
Campbell took the lead less than one minute in, but the Bears responded with goals from Gabby DiVirgilio and Lyndsey Lewis to take a 2-1 lead in the first quarter.

Campbell would score four of the next five goals to take a 5-3 lead with 36 seconds to play in the first.

Mercer responded with a 4-0 scoring run to take a 7-5 lead. One of the goals came from Brisbin, her first career goal.

Campbell would score the last two goals of the first half and the two teams went into halftime tied at seven.

To start the second half, Urey scored her hat trick followed by a beautiful shot from long range from Lind and the Bears took a 9-7 lead less than five minutes into the third quarter.

Third quarter goals from Maddi Koury and Emily Barnes made it an 11-9 game after three quarters.

After Lind's second goal of the game made it 12-9 in the fourth quarter, Campbell fought back scoring the next two to make it 12-11 with four minutes to play.

Kileigh Casey came up with arguably the biggest goal of the game when she came from behind the goal and scored from close range to make it 13-11 with three minutes left. A free position goal from Koury with less than two minutes left sealed the win for Mercer.

NOTABLES

Mercer finished the regular season undefeated on the road (8-0) and in the Big South (9-0).
With the win, Mercer earned the No. 1 seed and will host the Big South Tournament May 5-7.
Urey's three goals gave her 72 on the season to lead the Big South and is second in the country in goals.
Gabby Brisbin made her first career start and scored her first career goal.
This was only the third game this season Mercer's opponent had as many or more shots on goal than the Bears. The previous two were both losses (Davidson and Florida).
Gabby DiVirgilio scored three goals for the fifth consecutive game.

FOLLOW THE BEARS
For complete coverage of Mercer Women's Lacrosse, please follow the Bears on social media at @MercerWLAX (Twitter) and @Mercerwlax (Instagram) or visit the official home of Mercer Athletics at MercerBears.com.