#1 seed DU women’s lacrosse traveled to Philadelphia to face #4 Georgetown in a matinee semifinal in the Big EAST Tournament. The defending champion Pioneers jumped out to a 7-2 first-quarter league, doubled up the Hoyas in the second quarter (4-2) and coasted to a 20-9 win.
In the opening eight minutes, Denver reeled off four straight goals to earn a 4-0 lead. Caroline Keil and Ryan Dineen got the first two tallys and Olivia Ripple netted a pair of goals, one on a free-position, in the early barrage. Georgetown countered with two consecutive goals. Denver went on a scoring outburst in the final two minutes of the quarter. Lauren Black initiated the scoring on the man-up target, a Caroline Keil (free-position) goal and another Keil goal with the clock running down.
The teams traded a pair of goals to open the second quarter. Once again, Olivia Ripple went to work with a goal and followed that with a man-up goal to head into the halftime break up 11-4.
Ripple carried over her scoring touch from the first half and opened up the second-half scoring. GU followed with a pair of goals but Ryan Dineen stemmed the Hoyas run with her second tally of the game. The Denver defense went to work and allowed a single goal by Georgetown’s Rosie McCarthy over the final seven minutes of the third period.
Ripple opened up the fourth quarter with a pair of goals in the first three-and-a-half minutes to ice the game, 13-7. Georgetown struck with two goals in fifteen seconds with under ten minutes remaining in the game but Denver reeled off five consecutive goals by Eva Thompson-Marr, Lauren Black (man-down) and a pair of man-up goals by Thompson-Marr. Mollie Estepp finished the Pioneers run, 20-9 final.
Denver’s pink defense triggered the 20-point scoring outburst. Georgetown had 23 turnovers to 14 for DU while Denver secured 17 more groundballs than the Hoyas. Denver faces the winner of #2 Villanova vs. #3 UConn later this afternoon. Pioneer fans will want to see a rematch against UConn who slipped by DU 14-13 in overtime at Storrs, Ct. in mid-April.
Dunker will try and attend on Saturday. Always love watching DU win championships. Our RPI probably won’t be good enough for a at-large bid thus we need the win to make the NCAA’s. We can win a game or two and then who knows. Most likely we will travel to Stanford. That’s a whole lot better than Northwestern.