The Utica College women's lacrosse team lost to visiting Nazareth College 13-5 in Empire 8 Conference play Sunday afternoon. Junior
Lily Fleskes (Dover, MA/Dover Sherborn) netted two goals and added one assist for the Pioneers. Utica netted the first two goals of the second half and cut the Naz lead to 7-4 with 14:56 to go in the contest, but that was as close as the Pioneers would get and the Golden Flyers went on to score six of the game's final seven goals.
The Pioneers have now lost four straight and dropped to 3-6 overall, while Nazareth runs its win streak to three and improves to 7-4 overall, including a 3-1 mark in conference play.
Nazareth jumped out on top early, netting three goals in the first 12 minutes of the contest to take a 3-0 lead. Sophomore
Katlyn Banker (Henrietta, NY/Rush-Henrietta) opened the scoring for Utica and cut the Golden Flyers lead to 3-1 when she netted a free position goal at the 17:54 mark.
Nazareth's Alyssia Roberts added another goal before the Pioneers cracked the scoreboard again when
Lily Fleskes (Dover, MA/Dover Sherborn) tallied her first of the game and the Pioneers trailed 4-2 with 15:37 to go in the half.
The Golden Flyers would put up three unanswered goals before the half to take a commanding 7-2 lead into intermission.
The Pioneers made a game of it by scoring two goals in the opening 15 minutes of the second half.
Tammy Kohanski (Syracuse, NY/Corcoran) scored a man up goal, unassisted, at 23:26, before Fleskes added her second of the game off a free position attempt to cut the Naz lead to three.
Naz went on to dominate the final 12 minutes of play to earn the eight goal victory. Junior captain
Julianne Schultheiss (Commack, NY/Commack) tallied a late goal for Utica off an assist from Fleskes, but it proved to be too late.
Sophomore goalie
Shelby Barbay (Waterloo, NY/Waterloo) made 17 saves for the second consecutive contest, while Ann Sessler stopped four shots in the victory.
Utica hits the road Friday for the first of a three game road trip when they travel to Elmira College for an Empire 8 Conference contest at 4 p.m.
--- www.ucpioneers.com ---