HPU Women’s Lacrosse rallies in eventual loss to Vermont

HIGH POINT, N.C. — The High Point University women’s lacrosse team came back from a seven-goal deficit to take the lead, but the University of Vermont scored the last five goals of the game to get an 18-14 win over the Panthers on Wednesday afternoon at Vert Stadium. Sophomore Chelsea Thompson and senior Alexis Goldman each scored three goals for High Point.

“Vermont is a good team and we dug ourselves into a deep hole in the first half,” said HPU head coach Lyndsey Boswell. “We came out with a nice run in the second half, I was happy with the way the team responded. Unfortunately Vermont went on its own run in the last 10 minutes and we couldn’t respond. I thought Anna Wallingford played really well in the cage in the second half and Chelsea led our offense.”

Along with her hat trick, Thompson had an assist and took several of HPU’s draws in the second half. For Goldman, her three goals doubled her season total. Sophomore midfielder Christie Dougherty scored twice with a team-high four draw controls and three ground balls. Senior midfielder Heather Ziccarelli got eight ground balls and two caused turnovers and junior defender Courtney McLaughlin had four caused turnovers along with three ground balls.

Vermont midfielder Karli Mackendrick entered the game with just three points but broke out for six goals and three assists to lead her team to the victory. She also had three draw controls and three ground balls. Attacker Sydney Mas scored four goals and attacker Allison Pfohl had a hat trick with three draw controls. Goalie Laura Barber made 16 saves to earn her fourth victory of the season.

Leading 10-4 at halftime, Vermont scored two of the first three goals in the second period to take a 12-5 lead. HPU junior goalie Anna Wallingford entered the game at halftime and made two big saves in the early minutes to get momentum going for High Point and the Panthers scored the next eight goals. Dougherty’s free-position goal made it 12-12 and Thompson scored on a feed from Grace Gaeng to make it 13-12 Panthers with 17:53 left in the game. Mackendrick scored her sixth goal of the day to tie it at 13-13 before Thompson scored again to give High Point the lead back with 15:20 remaining.

Vermont’s Pfohl scored her first of three goals to tie the game at 14-14 with 13:42 remaining. Wallingford made saves on the next two Catamount shots to keep it even, but it was UVM’s Barber who stonewalled the Panthers with stops on HPU’s last six shots on frame, including two free-position attempts.

Pfohl scored three of Vermont’s last five goals. Mackendrick assisted on the final two by Pfohl at 4:21 and Emma Kelly with 1:59 to go.

Vermont got out to a six-goal lead by halftime with Mackendrick tallying five in the first period. Mackendrick scored Vermont’s first two goals and the Catamounts led, 3-1, before High Point’s Goldman scored her second goal in four minutes to make it 3-2. Vermont then scored the next four goals (two by Mackendrick) to take a commanding lead that it would hold for the remainder of the half.

Freshman Julia Burns got her first start in net for High Point, making four saves in 30 minutes. Wallingford entered at halftime and made six saves on 14 shots.

The Panthers will be back on the field on Saturday when they travel to Robert Morris to take on the Colonels at 1 p.m. HPU won 18-7 in the teams’ matchup last season.