SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – In a battle for the Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) women's lacrosse regular season crown and top seed in the conference tournament, Endicott was edged 19-17 by Western New England on Wednesday afternoon at Golden Bear Stadium.
Endicott and Western New England each end the season with a 7-1 record in the CCC, and the Golden Bears earn the top spot by virtue of the head-to-head tiebreaker.
Holly Davis (Guilford, Conn.) had seven goals and an assist for the Gulls (10-7), while Western New England (13-4) was paced by six goals and two assists from attack Taylor Scialdone (Yorktown Heights, N.Y.).
Trailing by five goals with twelve minutes left, Davis scored twice and Kelly Tierney (S. Hadley, Mass.) added one of her five goals, to go with a game-high six assists, but the final five minutes were scoreless and Endicott's come-back attempt came up just short.
Junior Rachel Campos (Shrewsbury, Mass.) won a game-high 12 of Endicott's 20 draw controls, and the Blue and Green had a slim edge in shots, 35-33. Western New England had 18 draw control wins of their own, including 10 from sophomore captain Jessica Scannapieco (Blue Bell, Pa.), who scored five goals in the victory.
The Gulls jumped out to a 4-1 lead, including early goals from junior Callie Murphy (Woburn, Mass.) and sophomore Siri Mason (Williamstown, Mass.). Murphy scored three times and Mason added two goals, but only four players found the back of the net for Endicott.
Endicott was undone by a 9-3 Western New England run over the final eleven minutes of the first half, which began after Tierney connected on a free position shot at 12:46 to make the game 9-4 in favor of the Gulls. Scannapieco and Scialdone scored alternating goals twice, and then Scialdone added two more after Davis and Tierney had answered for Endicott. Scannapieco netted two more goals before the half, with sophomore Kaitlynn Stevens (Stratford, Conn.) adding her only goal of the game, while only Murphy found the back of the net for the Gulls in the final 7:00 of the first half.
The flurry gave the Golden Bears a one-goal lead at the break that they would build and protect over the final thirty minutes.
More Golden Bears got on the scoresheet in the second half, as freshman Tori Cirocco (Carmel, N.Y.) opened the scoring and fellow first-year Brooke Kumnick (Granby, Conn.) completed a hat trick. Scaldone extended the Western New England lead to 19-14 with twelve minutes to play before the Gulls netted the final three goals of the game.
Junior Rachel Socolow (Westford, Mass.) faced 26 shots and made seven stops in the loss, while WNE sophomore goalie Melissa Perry (Somers, Conn.) improved to 3-1 after making 13 saves on 30 shots.
Endicott freshman Isabelle Sipperly (Greenwich, N.Y.) had two assists in the defeat. Murphy won four draw controls and Davis won two while picking up two ground balls for the Gulls. Senior captain Stacia Geno (White River Junction, Vt.) picked up three ground balls, and was one of four Gulls to cause a turnover.
The Golden Bears were led by four ground balls from Cirocco and had six different players cause turnovers in the victory. Sherman assisted on four goals and Kumnick and Scialdone had a pair of helpers apiece.
Both teams will earn a bye and the right to host next Wednesday's semifinals of the CCC tournament, and will await the winners of the quarterfinal matchups. Make sure to check back to ecgulls.com for updated schedules and times for the CCC Tournament games.
