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KENNESAW, Ga. – On a wet, rainy and windy afternoon, freshman
Shannon Harrington scored three of her career-high six goals during a game-changing 9-1 run for Kennesaw State, and the Owls held off a late Stetson rally to claim their first conference win of the season, 14-12 in ASUN women's lacrosse action on Saturday from Fifth Third Bank Stadium.
KEY PLAYERS: Harrington's previous career-high had been four goals, and she topped that with the first goal of the second half, before finishing with a game-high six on eight total shots.
Hannah Davis posted four goals and two assists, while
Hannah Barth added a pair of scores.
Bailey Wilson led all players with 12 draw controls.
THE RUNDOWN: Stetson held the early hand, as after Davis scored the day's first goal, the Hatters scored the next four of the game to go up 4-1 with five minutes left in the first quarter. Harrington then scored with 1:45 on the clock, the first of three goals to end the quarter and bring KSU into a 4-4 tie. The run kept going in the second, as Harrington scored the final two to cap a run of six unanswered to put the Owls ahead 7-4. After Stetson stopped the run with a goal to close within two, three more unanswered goals for KSU made the score 10-5 with 12:03 left in the third. The Owls would outscore Stetson 6-3 in the third quarter to go up 14-8. KSU was held scoreless in the fourth but held the Hatters to four total goals to come away with the home victory.
QUOTABLE:
On today's weather
"We knew it was going to be really bad outside, so we actually did a lot to prepare for it. We practice yesterday with wet lacrosse balls and wet lacrosse sticks to try to simulate what we needed to do. This helped us stay locked in knowing that it was going to get sloppy at times."
On going 5-of-7 on free position attempts
"We have been working on improving our free position opportunities and it was really nice to see today that it paid off. It makes other teams have to think twice about whether or not they want to foul us."
Other thoughts from the victory
"The mindset was correct knowing that mistakes are going to happen, especially in a messy game, but I feel like they were in a good mental space to not get caught up in those mistakes and to just move on to the next play. We learned how to close the game today, which was huge. They needed to figure that out and that was the one piece that was missing in some of our earlier competitions this year. Our sideline today was being loud, being motivating, and being that thirteenth player for the girls on the field. I think that made a huge difference in our performance against Stetson today."
- KSU Head Coach Laura Maness
NEXT TIME OUT: The Owls will play on the road on Saturday, April 15, with a 2 p.m. contest against Queens in Charlotte.
