WAUKESHA, Wis. – The Carroll University women's lacrosse team bowed out of the 2022 CCIW Women's Lacrosse Championship with another grueling loss to in-state rival Carthage by a score of 13-15 on Wednesday night.
Clara Jelacic led all scorers with six points on five goals to go with seven draw controls and three caused turnovers.
The Pioneers (9-7) recorded 24 shots, 18 of which were on goal, and nine and seven were in the fourth quarter, respectively.
Alicia Van Dale tallied 13 saves in the cage but took the loss allowing 12 of the 15 goals. The Pios struggled early to convert clear attempts, going just 3-8 in the first quarter and ended the night 20-30. The Pios only collected 12 of the 32 draw controls as well.
In a defensive battle to begin the game, it was
Katrina Hardin who scored first on an assist from
Abby Stas with 7:43 left in the first. The Pios took a 2-0 lead from Stas less than a minute later, and Jelacic scored unassisted to force a Carthage timeout. The Firebirds scored four goals in the final 2:52 seconds of the first quarter and continued with three more unanswered goals to take a 7-3 lead in the second quarter. Jelacic broke the Carroll scoreless streak with 2:50 left until halftime.
Courtney Wright picked up a goal assisted by Hardin to help send Carroll to halftime down 5-8.
The Firebirds opened up the second half with two straight goals before Hardin scored on a man-up opportunity.
Grace Brockman scored once for Carroll as well in a man-up goal to cut the deficit back to three. Carthage once again scored four unanswered goals to end the third quarter, as Carroll had 15 minutes to make up seven goals. Jelacic began the fourth quarter with an unassisted goal less than a minute in after a turnover. Jelacic scored twice more to cut the deficit down to four goals with 11:09 left in the game. Brockman scored with 6:52 left, and Hardin scored with 6:05 left to cut it to just two. After a costly turnover on the offensive end, Carthage scored with 2:42 left in the game to go back up by three.
Janu Patel scored with two seconds left as the Pios were doing everything they could to cut into the lead, but the final buzzer rang too quick for Carroll.
