The nationally-ranked William Smith College lacrosse team collected its eighth-straight victory, knocking off Bard 22-5 in a Liberty League contest at Ferrari Field Friday afternoon. The Herons are now 12-1 overall this season and 7-0 in conference play.
William Smith was led by Maddie Montgomery (4g) and Emily Griffin (2g, 2a) who had four points each. Seven other Herons finished the game with three points, including Katherine Murray and Anna Murphy, who had hat tricks. Molly Davis had a game-high nine draw controls to go along with her three points and eight different players had a caused turnover. Allie McGinty logged a team-high three ground balls. All three goalies played for William Smith. Maura Smeader started and made a pair of saves in just under 26 minutes of action. Mady Dicks was first off the bench and stopped four shots. Kristen McCormick played the final seven minutes and made one save.
Sarah Child scored four of the five goals for the Raptors (2-10, 0-7) and Rachel Yoder notched three assists. Child also finished with a team-high four draw controls. Maggy Peyton played all sixty minutes in goal and made nine saves. She added four ground balls and two caused turnovers.
William Smith jumped out to an 11-0 lead at the end of 15 minutes and never looked back. Murphy opened the scoring with back-to-back goals from directly in front of the cage. Her first goal came 60 seconds into the game off of a feed from Payton McMahon Murphy then converted on a feed from Davis. The tallies were her 35th and 36th goals of the season, respectively. Montgomery scored the next two goals, extending the lead to 4-0 just over a minute later. Her 43rd goal of the season was unassisted and her 44th goal was set up by McMahon. Murray added her name to the scoresheet with a pair of unassisted goals of her own. Montgomery completed her hat trick with just over six minutes remaining in the frame. Seventeen seconds later, McGinty pocketed her first goal of the game off of a feed from Davis. The goal was McGinty’s 25th of the season and extended her point streak to 14 games. Forty-six seconds later Kaitlin Pellechia fired home a free position shot for her 17th strike of the season. McMahon and Murray rounded out the first quarter with unassisted goals.
Bard opened the second quarter, breaking up the shutout. Emma Heffron collected a pass from Yoder and beat Smeader for her seventh goal of the year. William Smith rattled off the next five goals to finish the first half with a 16-1 lead. Montgomery started the run with 10:49 left in the frame. Her team-leading 46th goal of the season was unassisted. One minute later, Maddie Schleicher added her name to the scoring column with a free-position goal. Murphy completed her hat trick with 8:52 remaining in the frame. Her 37th goal of the season was assisted by Griffin. McGinty kept the run going with a woman-up free position goal. It was her 26th goal of the year. Maggie Mulvaney<https://hwsathletics.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=16798> wrapped up the first half with her fourth of the year. McGinty was awarded the assist on the goal.
Schleicher extended William Smith’s run to six goals with her second goal of the game. The goal came just over three minutes into the second half and was assisted by Elizabeth MacMurray. Child scored the game’s next three goals for Bard. The middle goal of the run was a woman-up goal. Izzi Poplizio, Lily Clough and Yoder were credited with assists on Child’s natural hat trick.
The Herons scored the next five goals to extend the lead to 22-4. MacMurray wrapped up the third quarter with her second goal of the season. Schleicher notched an assist on the goal. Fifty-seven seconds into the final frame, Davis logged her 20th goal of the year. Griffin recorded back-to-back goals in the middle portion of the period. With just under 10 minutes left in regulation, she caused a turnover, picked up the ground ball and slipped a shot past the goalie for her first collegiate goal. Three minutes later, she converted on a free-position shot. MacMurray added her second goal of the game with 4:35 left in regulation. Griffin was awarded the assist on the goal. Child wrapped up the scoring with her fourth goal of the game and 35th strike of the season.
William Smith dominated the stat sheet, finishing with a 42-12 advantage in shots on goal, a 21-9 edge in the draw circle and a 19-12 advantage in ground balls. The 21 draw wins in today’s game are second on the Herons’ single-game list.
William Smith will be back in action next Friday, April 22, when it takes on Rensselaer to begin a three-game homestand. Opening draw against the Engineers is scheduled for 4 p.m. on Boswell Field.
