Whenever Lehigh had the ball in the first half of Saturday's Women's Lacrosse game, it was nearly unstoppable. So in the second half, AU just didn't give Lehigh the ball.
Instead, the Eagles controlled possessions and dominated the latter portion of their home Patriot League opener, storming from a 9-4 halftime deficit to a 15-10 win. In the process, AU held the once deadly Lehigh attack scoreless for three quarters of the second half - for over 25 minutes including the end of the first period.
AU (3-3, 2-0 PL) now finds itself with a three-game winning streak, and more importantly sits alone atop the PL, a half-game ahead of Colgate (5-2, 1-0).
In the end, the Eagles' versatile attack overpowered their competition. Sophomore midfielder Moriah Linnell and senior midfielder Nicole McCarthy led the scoring, each drilling four goals. Meanwhile, junior attacker Rebecca Copeland added three goals, and senior attacker Courtney Bennett and sophomore midfielder Caitlin Gorman notched two each.
"That's the thing about our attack," said AU head coach Ashley Flanigan. "We have multiple players that can score. That's big."
Still, for most of the game AU had to work much harder to score than Lehigh. The Eagles outshot the Mountain Hawks 11-10 in the first half. But between superb goalkeeping from Kyle Begina (nine saves on the day), poor shooting from AU's attackers, and a stealthy counter-attacking style from a Lehigh offense that only missed one first half shot, the Eagles couldn't keep pace. AU led 2-1 after the first 10 minutes, but was then outscored 8-2 the rest of the half.
"We just had to think more about our shot selection," Flanigan said. "It was just about coming out more aggressive [in the second half]."
Even with renewed focus, the comeback wasn't immediate. But after two early second-half scores, a McCarthy goal with 20:48 remaining sparked an onslaught in which AU scored six goals in just over five minutes.
In that spurt, it was Copeland who put AU ahead, 10-9 with her second goal, scored after a left-to-right cross-field pass from McCarthy found her in the clear. Copeland narrowly missed several earlier scoring opportunities, even getting denied by the right post in one second-half attempt. But she kept at it, and this time made no mistake.
"I was frustrated in the beginning," Copeland said, who shot 3-of-9 on the afternoon. "I thought so much about shots that I was missing the cage. In the second half I was just determined, along with my teammates."
Copeland's go-ahead goal was the fourth of the 6-0 spurt. In that spurt, Gorman and Linnell scored twice, while McCarthy also added a goal. Next, Copeland scored her final goal at the 12:01 mark, and Bennett scored her last with 8:13 left, giving AU a 14-9 lead.
"As a team, we knew we had to keep scoring," Copeland said. "There were a lot of options open, [and] we just needed to keep getting them the ball."
Attacker Barrie Cominsky, whose speed troubled AU in the first half, was the only Lehigh player to score in the second half, notching her third goal with 6:55 remaining to push the score to 14-10. Otherwise, Lehigh descended into frustration, and committed as many second-half fouls, 11, as AU scored second-half goals.
"When you have a scoring streak," Flanigan said, "it does get defenses frustrated. I think we took advantage of their frustration."
Toward the end of the game, the Eagles ate up time, choosing to settle for possession instead of shots. But with four seconds to go in regulation, Linnell scored her fourth goal off a set play after the last of a string of Lehigh fouls. Flanigan said she intended for her team to shoot on that possession, despite already holding a comfortable lead.
"You have one more shot left," she said. "You might as well go for it."
The Eagles travel to Baltimore to face powerhouse Johns Hopkins on Wednesday, before returning to Reeves next Saturday for another PL clash against Lafayette at 1 p.m.
