BOX SCORE Photo Gallery
HAMILTON, N.Y. (4/28/11) – In a three-overtime epic at Tyler's Field, the Colgate women's lacrosse team saw
Amanda O'Sullivan score 1:01 into the third extra frame to send the Raiders to the title game with a 15-14 win over American.
The Raiders (9-6) move on to their sixth championship game in the history of the Patriot League Tournament, which began in 2001.
Katie Sullivan led the way with a career-high five goals and an assist for six points, while
Kate Bergstrom had four scores.
Courtney Miller tied a career-high with five assists in the game and tallied her 32nd goal of the year for six points.
Colleen Bubnack and O'Sullivan had two goals apiece.
Goalie
Christina Roa finished with a season-best 16 stops, including five in the second overtime alone. She won her 23rd career game and ninth of the season.
The Eagles (9-8) got a team-high three goals from Bernadette Maher and had a total of nine goal scorers on the day. Samantha Marshall, Chiara Speziale and Kimberly Collins each had two goals in the loss. Goalie Kaska Komosinski stopped 11 shots with six coming in the second half.
The game didn't start off well for the Raiders as American jumped out to a quick 4-1 lead in the first 10 minutes. Bubnack scored the lone goal for the Raiders, while the Eagles got goals from four different scorers. Colgate settled down after the American run and Bergstrom sliced the lead to one at 4-3 with a pair goals and Sullivan tied the game with 10:31 remaining.
Greer Goebels was given an assist on the play for her lone point.
Maher gave the Eagles the advantage again with 8:28 left in the half, but the Raiders fired back by scoring four of the next five goals to take a 8-6 lead into halftime. Sullivan had two goals in those final three minutes. Bergstrom also added a goal and
Monica White scored her first postseason goal and only one of the game with two seconds left in the half.
The second half started just as the first with Miller scoring 2:12 into the final frame, but American answered back with five-consecutive goals to retake the lead at 11-9. Marshall had two goals and an assist during the run. O'Sullivan scored her first of two on the day to stop the American advantage and make it 11-10 with 19:07 remaining.
The teams traded the next four goals and American held onto a one-goal lead at 13-12, but Bergstrom scored an unassisted goal with 8:52 left to tie it at 13-13. American saw Lisa Schaaf fire back with her only goal of the day to give the Eagles the lead once again.
American tried to stall and run out the clock, but Colgate had other ideas. Sullivan scored her fifth of the game with an assist to Bergstrom with 3:02 left and took the game into overtime. The teams didn't score for the next 15 minutes of play, thanks to some brilliant goaltending play on both sides. Roa came up big for the Raiders multiple times in the second overtime as American won a majority of draw controls to earn possession. On the other end, Komosinski stopped three potential gamewinners on free-position shots by the Raiders.
The game then came to a quick end in the third extra frame as O'Sullivan scored her second of the day as she made a nice move from the top of the eight meter arch and shot high to beat Komosinski, which sent the Raider bench onto the field. Colgate came away with the 15-14 win after being behind since the 26-minute mark of the second half.
Colgate held a slim 32-31 shot and 24-23 ground ball advantage in the game. The teams committed a combined 54 fouls. The Raiders posted 19 draw controls to 16 for the Eagles. American went 1-for-3 on free-position shots, which all came in the first half. Colgate posted one goal in six opportunities from the eight meters, including an 0-for-3 showing in the second overtime.
The Raiders will face Navy on Saturday at 3 p.m. for the Patriot League Championship after the Mids beat Lehigh in the second game by a 10-8 score. The game can be seen live on CBS Sports Network and due to the contract with the network, the game will not be streamed live. Navy won the previous meeting this season between the two schools by a 14-11 score in Annapolis and that game was also on CBS Sports Network.
NOTES: This was the second-longest game in Colgate's history by number of overtimes … the Raiders beat Cornell 12-11 in four overtimes in 1995 … the seniors will be playing in their third Patriot League Championship and are 2-0 in the previous two … Colgate is now 10-6 all-time in the PL Tournament … the Raiders are 9-1 this year went leading at the half and 7-1 at home … Colgate is 4-1 in PL Championship games and 1-0 against Navy after a 17-4 win in 2009 … Bubnack extended her goal-scoring streak to 23 games and has tallied a point in 31-straight games … she has 17 points in the tournament in her career with 12 goals and five helpers … Miller is second all-time in single season assists with 35 this season after five today … she has had three games with at least five assists this season … she has 16 career postseason points with 10 goals and six assists … Sullivan tied a career-high with five goals and has eight postseason tallies … she had five against Vermont earlier in the year … the defense played well with 11 caused turnovers and 24 ground balls, along with 19 draw controls … Roa made double digit saves for the seventh time this season and the defensive player of the year had three GBs and a CT in the win …
Missy Giusti played an exceptional game on the backend with a game-high four caused turnovers, while Miller had three … Miller also added five GBs and three DCs … Giusti had four GBs and so did Bubnack.