HPU Women’s Lacrosse Wins NLC Regular Season With Victory Over Davidson

HIGH POINT, N.C. — The High Point University women’s lacrosse team won its first National Lacrosse Conference regular season championship, beating Davidson College 12-5, on Senior Night on Saturday at Vert Stadium. The Panthers got five goals from senior Alexis Goldman and finished the regular season 8-0 in the NLC and 13-3 overall.

“Davidson played us tough tonight, especially in the first half, but we were able to get the win and get the NLC regular season championship,” said HPU head coach Lyndsey Boswell. “Davidson plays a much slower pace than us and they were able to control the tempo in the beginning of the game. I’m glad we were able to get the win for our seniors in their last home game and achieve one of our big team goals.”

It’s the second season of varsity women’s lacrosse at High Point University and it was the team’s first senior night honoring Goldman and midfielder Heather Ziccarelli. Goldman’s five goals tonight gave her 16 in the last three games. Ziccarelli had another solid game with a goal, an assist, four ground balls, two draw controls and two caused turnovers.

Sophomore attacker Mackenzie Carroll posted three goals, five assists and three ground balls and sophomore defender Jasmine Jordan grabbed six ground balls. Sophomore midfielder Sara Kuhlman scored twice and had an assist, three caused turnovers and two draw controls. Goalie Anna Wallingford made four saves.

Davidson midfielder Alanna Parker scored twice and sophomore attacker Ann Fucigna had a goal and two assists. Freshman defender Diane Girling had four ground balls and a pair of caused turnovers while goalie Jessica Melby made nine saves and had three ground balls. Davidson finished the regular season 7-9 overall and 4-3 in the NLC.

The Wildcats won the opening draw and held on to the ball for the first several minutes until a turnover led to the Panthers’ first scoring opportunity. A Christie Dougherty shot went wide but High Point kept it and Goldman scored the first goal of the game with 25:19 on the clock. It was nearly 10 minutes until the next goal, also by Goldman, with Kuhlman on the assist.

The Panthers led 5-0 when Goldman scored with 6:46 left in the first half, before Davidson was able to come back and score four goals in the last five minutes of the half. Fucigna scored on a free-position shot with 4:48 to get it started for the Wildcats. Parker scored her first goal with 1:46 on the clock and Davidson got a quick goal off the draw by Erin Doherty with 1:29 left. High Point struck back with a free-position goal by Carroll with 42 seconds left but Davidson was able to score again off the draw, with Fucigna feeding Mary Leonard to make it 6-4 at halftime.

The pace was slow again to start the second half, but the Panthers were able to keep Davidson off the board and pull away with six goals in a row. Goldman scored her fourth goal on a free-position shot with 23:45 left. Carroll added a goal with 19:44 to go, coming around the corner of the cage for the shot. The Panthers’ final goal of the game was a Ziccarelli-to-Kuhlman connection with 5:12 left. Davidson’s Parker scored the last goal with 4:53 on the clock to make it 12-5.

High Point will try to repeat as NLC Tournament champ next weekend. HPU will be the No. 1 seed and play No. 8 Howard in the first round on Friday at Davidson’s Richardson Stadium. The semifinals are Saturday with the championship game on Sunday.