UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa., Feb. 26, 2005 - The 17th-ranked Penn State women's lacrosse team toppled No. 15 Vanderbilt 15-7 Saturday afternoon at Holuba Hall. The Nittany Lions improve to 1-0 and 1-0 in the American Lacrosse Conference while the Commodores fall to 0-1 and 0-1 in conference action.
With her eight saves in the contest, senior goalkeeper Lee Tortorelli (Havertown, Pa.) became Penn State's all-time career saves leader with 615 in her career.
Sophomore Lindsay Dutch (Ellicott City, Md.) and senior Emily Chambers (Valley Cottage, N.Y.) both recorded four goals in the contest, with Dutch scoring the first two goals of the contests and three of Chambers' tallies coming in the first half. Senior Kristen Burke (Severna Park, Md.) recorded a hat trick in the game with three goals while both junior Shari Maslin (New City, N.Y.) and junior Lori Havrilla (Devon, Pa.) scored two goals in the game. Maslin also assisted on three goals and sophomore Joanie Plake (Pittsburgh, Pa.) assisted on one score.
For Vanderbilt, junior Kate Hickman recorded three goals, senior Meg Spies tallied two and sophomores Kendall Thrift and Jennifer Tapscott each notched one goal. Senior goalkeeper Ashley Bastinelli recorded 15 saves in 60 minutes of action.
Penn State dominated the draw control battle, winning 20 draws to Vanderbilt's four. Dutch led the squad with six draws while Maslin added five and Plake posted four. The Nittany Lions opened up the contest on a 6-0 run on two goals from Dutch, two from Havrilla and one each from Maslin and Chambers. Vanderbilt finally got on the board 12 minutes into the contest with a free position goal from Tapscott before a Penn State goal from Burke less than three minutes later gave the Nittany Lions the 7-1 lead. Back to back Commodore goals trimmed the advantage to 7-3 but Penn State answered with consecutive Chambers goals, one off a free position shot and the other off the draw control and a pass from Maslin, to end the first half up, 9-3. Out of the break, Vanderbilt scored first on a goal from Hickman at 31:12 but Penn State responded with goals from Chambers and Maslin to take the 11-4 lead with just over 20 minutes remaining in the game. Another Commodore free position goal at 44:46 was quickly followed by three consecutive Nittany Lion scores, two from Dutch off of free position shots and one from Burke, to put Penn State up 14-5 with just under 10 minutes remaining. A Vanderbilt goal at 55:04 trimmed the Lion lead to 14-6 but a Burke goal from Chambers off the draw gave Penn State the 15-6 lead with four minutes remaining. The Commodores scored once more with just under three minutes remaining but it was too little too late as Penn State grabbed the 15-7 victory.
Penn State remains at home, hosting Bucknell on Friday, March 4 at 6:00 p.m.
Scoring:
P - 3:39, Dutch (unassisted)
P - 4:06, Dutch (Maslin)
P - 4:26, Havrilla (unassisted)
P - 5:20, Chambers (Plake)
P - 8:49, Maslin (unassisted)
P - 9:29, Havrilla (unassisted)
V - 12:00, Tapscott (Free Position)
P - 14:54, Burke (unassisted)
V - 20:34, Spies (unassisted)
V - 22:11, Hickman (Thrift)
P - 28:47, Chambers (Free Position)
P - 28:58, Chambers (Maslin)
Halftime: Penn State 9, Vanderbilt 3
V - 32:12, Hickman (Thrift)
P - 34:53, Chambers (unassisted)
P - 38:59, Maslin (unassisted)
V - 44:46, Thrift (Free Position)
P - 47:38, Dutch (Free Position)
P - 50:46, Dutch (Free Position)
P - 51:44, Burke (Maslin)
V - 55:04, Hickman (unassisted)
P - 55:12, Burke (Chambers)
V - 57:20, Spies (unassisted)
Final Score: Penn State 15, Vanderbilt 7
For more information on the Penn State women's lacrosse team, please visit www.GoPSUsports.com.
