Hot off a 12-6 win over the University of Massachusetts Lowell, the women’s lacrosse team took the field Saturday for its penultimate contest of the season against Columbia. The matchup was Bruno’s last home game of the season, and the seniors — Jillian Lee ’17, Mollie Lane ’17, Kerianne Hunt ’17, Sarah Peters ’17 and Ali Kim ’17 — were honored before the game. After a hard-fought, overtime contest in which neither team would lead by more than three goals, Brown (6-8, 1-5 Ivy) won the matchup 14-13 to snag its first conference win.
A pair of goals by each team in the first 10 minutes knotted the game at 2-2 . Then, back-to-back goals by the Lions (7-7, 2-4) were answered by a pair from Bruno to tie the game again at four apiece.
Brown went into the halftime break down 7-5. At the half, Columbia was 3-4 from free position shots, while Brown was 1-1.
The Lions scored again out of the break, netting their fourth straight goal and grabbing an 8-5 lead — Columbia’s largest of the game. But Brown fought back, and four unanswered goals from Hafsa Moinuddin ’19, Bri Irons ’18, KC Williams ’20 and Zoe Verni ’19 gave Bruno an 11-10 lead with 16:42 to play.
Brown eventually took a 13-11 lead after a pair of goals, one each from Emma DeGennaro ’20 and Marissa Hudgins ’18. Columbia’s Laine Parsons netted two goals in the final 3:07 to draw the Lions level and force the game to overtime.
DeGennaro nailed an unassisted goal 5:22 into the overtime period to give Bruno the 14-13 win.
“It was just like a rush of adrenaline,” DeGennaro said. “We were a man down, and our coach just kept saying ‘if you get doubled, it doesn’t matter, just go to the cage,’ and I just knew when I got that ball that’s what I needed to do.”
Columbia narrowly outshot the Bears in the contest by a 33-30 margin. The Lions also scooped up 24 ground balls to Brown’s 12, and both teams were 4-8 from free position shots. Both the Lions and the Bears spilled 23 turnovers apiece.
DeGennaro tallied three goals and two assists, Moinuddin added two goals and one assist and Lee contributed one goal and two assists in the effort.
DeGennaro said that Senior Day provided extra motivation for Bruno. “It was our last game on Stevenson with the seniors, and … that energy just gave us the edge,” she said. “Of course, we’re sad that the seniors are leaving but also excited to take on our last home game with them.”
“Just knowing how far they’ve pushed us this season, … just knowing that they leave everything they have on the field, … we wanted to do the same thing for them,” she added.
Bruno faces its final test of the season Saturday when it takes on Dartmouth. While the team is out of postseason contention, they are still motivated.
“We’ve been talking about playing out the rest of the season for Brown pride,” DeGennaro said. “Despite any of the losses we took this season, we just knew we wanted to finish out … strong, get these two Ivy wins and just never stop playing Brown lacrosse.”
