HPU Women’s Lacrosse gets 13-12 win over Holy Cross

HIGH POINT, N.C. — The High Point University women’s lacrosse team eked out a 13-12 win over Holy Cross on Monday night at Vert Stadium. Sophomore midfielder Christie Dougherty led the Panthers’ offense with four goals and an assist and freshman goalie Julie Burns made six saves on 10 shots, including several in the closing minutes.

“We let them catch up right at the end of the first half and I thought we came out and executed better to start the second half,” said HPU head coach Lyndsey Boswell. “Holy Cross fought until the end but Julia Burns really stepped up and made some saves for us.”

Dougherty also had a game-high five draw controls and grabbed two ground balls along with her five points for the Panthers. Sophomore attacker Chelsea Thompson scored three goals with two assists and a pair of ground balls and junior Grace Gaeng scored two goals with two assists, four draw controls and four ground balls.

Junior goalie Anna Wallingford got the start and earned her second victory of the season, playing the first 40:48 and departing with a 12-8 lead. Burns came in and played the final 19:12, making six saves to close it out.

Holy Cross was led by Sara Hennessey, who scored three goals and had an assist and two ground balls. Maddie Carrellas came off the bench to record a hat trick and Taylor Zebrowski scored two goals with two assists and three draw controls.

High Point improved to 3-1 with the victory while Holy Cross fell to 1-4. It was the Panthers’ second win in a row.

The teams went back and forth in the first half, the largest lead a 6-4 High Point gap when Sara Kuhlman scored with 2:11 to go in the first period. Sophomore attacker Mackenzie Carroll threaded a perfect pass from behind the net to Kuhlman, who shot it in. Holy Cross came back with two free-position goals by Carrellas with 0:36 and 0:04 to go in the first half to tie it at 6-6 at the break.

Gaeng scored the first goal of the second half when she received a crisp pass from Thompson and got a diving shot off to give High Point the lead for good with 29:15 left to play. The Panthers stretched the lead from one goal to four in the next four minutes on scores from Dougherty, Thompson and Kuhlman. Kuhlman’s unassisted goal with 25:47 left made it 10-6.

Holy Cross was able to get some traction with scores from Kayla DiBari and Zebrowski before the Panthers came back and made it 12-8 and 13-9, the later coming on Dougherty’s fourth goal with 15:47 remaining. The Crusaders scored the last three goals to make it interesting.

After Hennessey scored to get Holy Cross within two with 11:49 remaining, the Crusaders were able to get nine free-position attempts that resulted in five free-position shots on goal, with Burns stopping four. After one save, Burns turned the ball over on the clear attempt but recovered by saving a shot from Zebrowsky with 3:01 to go. The Crusaders were finally able to capitalize with a Zebrowsky free-position goal with 1:44 to go, getting them within a goal. HPU senior Heather Ziccarelli won the ensuing draw and the Panthers held the ball the rest of the way.

High Point is back in action on Wednesday when it hosts Vermont at noon at Vert Stadium. The Panthers travel to Pittsburgh to take on Robert Morris on Saturday at 1 p.m.