Sweet Marissa Flies Garnet Past Eagles
ST. DAVID'S, Pa. -- Sophomore Marissa Schaffer scored four goals and Swarthmore held off a late rally by the Eastern Eagles to earn a gritty 13-11 road victory. The Garnet snapped a two-game skid with the win and improve to 6-5 on the season.
Swarthmore led 13-8 with 6:12 to play after Schaffer converted a Katie Crawford '07 feed. Eastern scored with 4:17 remaining to cut the lead to four, and found the back of the net twice in rapid succession with 1:36 and 0:55 remaining but came up two goals short.
Eastern scored two of the game's first three goals before the Garnet ripped off three straight in a span of 3:27, with senior Lindsay Roth notching two of the tallies and assisting freshman Abbe Muller on the other. The game then went scoreless for over six minutes before Eastern went on a run of their own, scoring four straight to take a 6-4 lead. Kate Hoy, the Eagle scoring leader, picked up her 27th and 28th goals of the year during the stretch. Swarthmore regrouped and tied the score before halftime when Megan Sanborn '08 found Roth for a goal with 1:22 remaining and, just nine seconds later, Muller put home a feed from fellow first-year Alex Gilbert-Bono.
Eastern neutralized any momentum Swarthmore may have had coming out of the break, and the second half was scoreless for the first five minutes. Finally, Crawford put the Garnet back on top with an unassisted goal with 24:40 to go. Amy Norman scored for Eastern to re-tie the score, and Swarthmore junior netminder Susannah Blair was injured on the play and had to leave the game in favor of first-year Allison Grein.
There was no reason to panic, though, as Grein allowed just one goal in her first 19 minutes of action, and Schaffer came up with consecutive goals to put the Garnet ahead for good. Gilbert-Bono assisted on the second of those tallies, which came with 18:53 showing on the clock. Hoy scored her fourth goal of the game to cut the lead to 9-8, but Swarthmore then went on a game-deciding run.
Just 30 seconds after Hoy's goal, the Garnet again flashed their quick-strike prowess when Sanborn scored without an assist. 54 seconds later, Gilbert-Bono picked up her third assist of the game by finding senior Athena Samaras. Sanborn picked up another goal before Schaffer extended the lead to 13-8.
Eastern rallied to score the game's final three goals, with Hoy picking up her fifth score of the game and 30th of the season along the way, but the five-goal lead was too much to overcome.
Grein acquitted herself well in emergency duty, making six saves in 22:12 of action. Since she entered with the game tied at 7-7, the first-year picked up her first collegiate victory. Blair made six saves in the first 37:48.
In addition to Schaffer's four goals, Swarthmore was led on offense by Roth's three scores. It was a breakout game for Roth, a 2006 all-Centennial Conference selection who has been slowed by injury through much of 2007.
Sanborn and Muller put home two goals apiece, while Gilbert-Bono's three assists were a team high.
Senior Paige Gentry led the Garnet defense with six ground balls and four caused turnovers. Junior Abigail Fischer was right behind with five GB's and three CT's off the bench.
Jenn Van Ness made 13 saves in goal for the Eagles.
Swarthmore will now get ready for a key Centennial Conference match-up on Saturday afternoon at Clothier Stadium; McDaniel comes to town for a 3:00 p.m. match. The Green Terror are ranked #14 in Division III, but fell to the Garnet 16-15 in a thriller last March 25th.