WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Catholic University women's lacrosse team rode a strong second half to an important victory over Juniata on Saturday afternoon.
In a bout between second and third in the conference standings at the beginning of the day, the two teams were locked in a battle after 30 minutes. Juniata held a 6-4 advantage at the break before a blitz from Catholic saw them pull away to down the Eagles, 15-8.
Mia Perkell led the charge for the Cardinals, scoring five times. The five tallies marks a new single-game high for the junior after a pair of four-goal games earlier this season.
Catholic's two leading scorers, Perkell and Izzy Fiore, scored the first two goals of the contest to push Catholic out to an early lead. Juniata's Peyton Goodrich and Perkell then alternated tallies before the Eagles held Catholic scoreless for over 13 minutes straight to produce a 4-0 run. The two teams again exchanged goals, allowing Juniata to go to the break two goals to the good.
Meghan McDonogh's women would not be denied in the second half, however, as the Cardinals shut out their opponents in the third quarter and continued that strong defense into the final stanza to the tune of a 21-minute shutout streak of their own after halftime. After trailing at halftime, Catholic outscored the Eagles 11-2 to seal the victory.
Tori Wilsey cut the Juniata lead to one four minutes into the second half before Jessie Lee and Charlotte Spaulding played a beautiful two-women game to get Lee free for the equalizer. Then Mattea Del Peschio took over, netting three goals in a row to complete her first hat trick of the season.
Juniata's two leading offensive threats combined for all eight Eagle goals as Goodrich matched Perkell with five and Grace Gibbs netted a hat trick. The Juniata duo has now combined for an impressive 127 goals this season, but the Cardinals did well to ensure that no other Eagles would hurt them offensively on the day.
Rachel Rubenstein had a monster day on defense, causing five turnovers and scooping up six ground balls. Riley Martin also produced a strong showing, winning five draw controls and adding two ground balls to her two goals.
Catholic battled some first-half turnover issues as the Cardinals gave it up 11 times in the opening 30 minutes. McDonogh's squad used strong play in the clear to make up for it, going a perfect 19-of-19 and holding Juniata to an 11-of-15 mark. Fiore hounded the Eagle defenders out of possession, causing three turnovers of her own and grabbing three ground balls.
The victory pushes Catholic to 7-1 in Landmark Conference play this season, with its lone loss coming to Scranton. Elsewhere around the conference, the Royals fell to Susquehanna in overtime, pulling the Cardinals even with the Scranton at the top of the standings with one game left to play.
It's still everything to play for entering the final day of the regular season next Saturday as the No. 1 seed, home-field advantage in the quarterfinals and the final postseason berths are all still up for grabs. Catholic will need to defeat Wilkes on the road and hope that Scranton falls to Moravian in Bethlehem to claim the top seed as the Royals own the head-to-head tiebreaker.
The Cardinals will face a quick turnaround for their final non-conference game of the season tomorrow. Catholic will welcome No. 24 Colorado College to Carlini Field for a rare Sunday contest, with opening draw control set for 1 p.m.
