ERIE, Pa. – The Mercyhurst Women's Lacrosse team booked their trip to the PSAC Semifinals on Tuesday evening with an 8-7 victory over IUP. The Lakers used a last second goal from freshman Maggie Newton to propel them past the Crimson Hawks.

The Lakers jumped out to a 3-1 lead after the first 15 minutes of action. Marissa Comerate started off the scoring with the first goal of the contest six minutes into play to put the Lakers up. IUP responded on their ensuing possession with their first tally of the contest to tie the game at one. Meghan Nasman and Victoria Gottorff would add Laker tallies to close out the quarter.

In the second quarter, the Crimson Hawks Katie Hibinger cut the Mercyhurst lead down to one at the 6:43 mark of the quarter. Amanda Bailey scored her 15th goal of her freshman campaign just over two minutes later to give the Lakers a 4-2 advantage at the halftime break. Both teams played strong defense in the third quarter. The lone tally of the quarter came from IUP with a minute remaining to put the score at 4-3 Mercyhurst entering the final 15 minutes of play.

In the fourth quarter, Nasman found the back of the net for the second time in the game to put the Lakers back up by two. IUP responded with back-to-back scores just one minute apart to tie the contest at 5-5 with 12 minutes left in the game. Newton scored her first goal of the game three minutes later to put Mercyhurst back up by one. IUP then scored two more tallies to take their first lead at 7-6 with three minutes left on the clock. Gottorff responded for the Lakers with a goal on their next possession to tie the game back up with two minutes remaining. After a couple of Laker stops, they found themselves back with the ball in their offensive zone with 30 seconds of game clock left. 

Head Coach Sam Struss called for a timeout and the Lakers came out and handed the ball to Newton who would come around the top of the circle from left to right, speed past her defender and fire a shot into the back of the net with just five ticks left on the clock to give the Lakers the win.

Kaitlyn Lippert finished the contest with five saves for the Lakers while Kiana Francis was pestering IUP attackers all night as the junior registered a season high three caused turnovers to go along with four ground balls. The Lakers will now advance to Friday's PSAC Semifinal round hosted by Seton Hill. The Lakers will match up with the No.1 seed out of the East, East Stroudsburg at 4:00 p.m.