La Salle, Pa. – The Mercyhurst Women's Water Polo team opened up play at the La Salle Tournament on Saturday morning, matching up with the host La Salle Explorers and Mount St. Mary's. The Laker dropped their opening contest to La Salle 21-10, and followed with a 13-2 loss to Mount St. Mary's.
Against La Salle
The Lakers squared off with the explorers for the second time this season and are scheduled to meet with them again tomorrow. This contest was much more contested by the Lakers compared to their 22-3 loss to La Salle back on Jan. 29th. This time La Salle was victorious by a 21-10 margin.
The Explorers started the scoring with five goals in the first three minutes of the first quarter, back-to-back goals from
Hanna Good and Grace Byzyski cut the Explorer lead to three at the 2:34 mark of the first quarter. Salem added two more goals in the opening frame while the Laker's
Emma Ruttinger trimmed the Laker deficit to 7-3 entering the second period.
La Salle added an eighth goal early in the second period before the Lakers
Sakura Gavin struck for Mercyhurst on the powerplay to put the score at 8-4, the Explorers then rattled off three straight goals to push their lead to seven. Each team would score in the final 30 seconds of play in the first half, for the Lakers it was Gavin scoring with 27 seconds remaining while La Salle responded just 20 seconds later. At the half, La Salle led 12-5.
Gavin secured her hat-trick a minute into the third period before the Explorers scored three unanswered.
Brean Jordan was the only other Laker to put a tally up in the quarter when she found the back of the cage at the 4:06 mark in the period. La Salle tacked on another late, and led 16-7 at the end of three periods.
In the final frame, the Explorers outscored the Lakers 5-3, the Lakers would receive a fourth goal from Gavin, along with scores from Alli Dombrowski and
Ava Gebhardt.
Against Mount St. Mary's
"The Mount" jumped out of the blocks quickly as they outscored the Lakers 7-1 in the opening quarter. Mercyhrust's Alli Dombrowski scored in the middle of a three and four goal outburst from Mount St. Mary's.The second quarter proved to be a defensive battle with only two scores in the quarter. Mount St. Mary's did score the two goals to take a 9-1 lead into the halftime break.
Gebhardt scored her second goal of the day to open up play in the second half, however it was the only Mercyhurst score in the half as they fell by a 13-2 score. Mercyhurst keeper
Marley Ramon finished the game with six saves.
Up Next
The Lakers will conclude their trip to La Salle tomorrow with matches against St. Francis College of Brooklyn and La Salle.
