HIGH POINT, N.C. — The High Point University Women’s Lacrosse team overcame an early deficit to get a 13-10 win over George Mason on Saturday afternoon at Vert Stadium. The Panthers were paced by junior attacker Grace Gaeng, who scored four goals and had four draw controls. Junior goalie Anna Wallingford earned the win with five saves.
“We got a good win over a good team today even though we didn’t execute on everything,” said HPU head coach Lyndsey Boswell. “We need to work on playing better early in games but I’m happy that we were able to go on a couple of runs to get back ahead.”
Gaeng’s four goals were a season high and she added four draw controls. Scoring leader Chelsea Thompson had a game-high five points on two goals and three assists. Senior midfielder Heather Ziccarelli had two goals and two assists and sophomore attacker Mackenzie Carroll had a goal, two assists, four ground balls, three draw controls and two caused turnovers.
George Mason was paced by Allie Hilderbrandt’s hat trick and two draw controls while Emily Ellisen had two goals, two assists and two draw controls. Goalie Brittany Pastrana made nine saves and had five ground balls.
George Mason got out to an early lead, taking a 4-1 gap when Ellisen scored two goals in a row with 23:35 and 20:59 remaining in the first half. Momentum switched to the Panthers on Ziccarelli’s goal with 18:51 remaining, starting a run of six unanswered goals by High Point.
Gaeng scored three goals on the Panthers’ six-goal run, including the game-winner that made it 5-4 with 16:50 remaining. Carroll grabbed one of her three draw controls of the first half and dished to Gaeng for the goal. High Point finished the run with a goal by Sara Kuhlman, who scored on a great pass from Thompson from behind the net. That made it 7-4 in favor of HPU.
George Mason was able to score a pair of goals in the last 10 minutes of the half to get back within one before High Point scored again in the last minute to make it 8-6 at the break. Ziccarelli took the ball into the zone on a clear and dished to Carroll for the goal.
Thompson scored her first goal of the game coming out of halftime and the Panthers led by at least two goals the rest of the way. High Point led, 12-7, on a goal by Christie Dougherty and led, 13-8, on Thompson’s second goal. She took a pass from Ziccarelli and twisted around, getting her shot past two defenders and into the corner of the net with 9:38 left.
George Mason’s Katie Mascolo and Kirsten Russell scored the last two goals of the game with 6:05 and 2:46 remaining, respectively.
High Point gets a week off before hosting the University of Oregon on Sunday, March 25, at 1 p.m. at Vert Stadium.