Box Score
GAMBIER, Ohio – The Wooster women’s lacrosse team built an 8-3 lead in the first half and held off an Allegheny second-half rally to advance to the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) championship game on Saturday with a 13-9 victory in the semifinals this evening.
Nina Dine tallied a game-high six points with three goals and three assists to lead the Fighting Scots (11-3) into the title game against Kenyon, the winner of the first semifinal. Clare Nelson-Johnson added four goals and one assist in the win.
Jensen Paterson tied her record for most points in a season with 66, closing out the year with a team-high four goals, all on free-position attempts. Becca O’Shurak, who made a career-high 14 saves against Wooster in the regular season, had 11 stops on the day.
Nelson-Johnson scored first at the 3:16 mark for an early 1-0 lead, but Allegheny answered back with a pair of goals by Elissa Gordon and Jensen. Dine broke an eight-minute scoring draught with her first goal of the game, sparking a 6-0 run by the Fighting Scots for a 7-2 advantage.
Meg Grossman recorded her lone goal with 4:59 left in the opening half, while Jaqueline Wallat scored off a feed from Dine for an 8-3 lead at recess.
In the second half, the Gators scored the first five out of six goals to make it a one-point game. Paterson buried two eight-meter shots and Kiah Voyer-Colbath (York, Maine/York) put away an unassisted marker at 8-6. Paterson got her fourth goal at the 17:30 mark and nine minutes later Abby Silvester scored on a free-position attempt to make it 9-8.
The Allegheny defense allowed just one Wooster goal in a 24-minute span in the second half, but the Fighting Scots managed to get four goals in the final 6:43 of the game to secure the win. Dine responded in crunch time with two goals.
Paterson and Grossman were two of 12 players selected in the conference to the All-Tournament Team.