By: Hunter Lobur Cummins
The Canisius women’s lacrosse team was overwhelmed on Saturday, April 23 when it lost at Fairfield to the Stags in Connecticut, 21–11. The loss dropped the Griffs to 10–5 overall and locked the team into the fifth seed for the MAAC women’s lacrosse championship tournament.
In the first period of play against Fairfield, Canisius did hold a brief 2–1 lead, their only one of the game. Skylar McArthur scored to knot the game up at one, and then Caroline Netti found the back of the net on a man-up situation to get the lead for the Griffs before the Stags took it back.
The second quarter saw only one goal in total scored by Canisius. It was Megan Hoffman recording the tally on another man-up situation to begin the period. From then on, Fairfield dominated through the halftime whistle. At intermission, the score read 13–3 in favor of the Stags.
In the third period, Canisius was able to bring the deficit back to within eight goals, as McArthur and Netti scored two more goals each and Hoffman added another of her own.
The fourth and final quarter saw McArthur score twice to finish the regular season with 46 total goals, and Netti contributed another man-up goal to run her regular season goal total up to 35. In the end, the final score read 21–11 for Fairfield. This result in turn meant that the same two teams would meet at the same location one week later at 5 p.m. for the first round of the MAAC championship tournament.
Coming into the postseason, Canisius holds a 10–5 overall and 5–3 conference record. Fairfield sits at 10–6 overall, and has an identical conference record. It will be the second meeting between the two programs this season, as the only other matchup was the one previously mentioned.
Fairfield is riding a two-game win streak heading into the showdown. The winner of this game will then play on Friday, May 6 in Loudonville, N.Y. at Siena College in the MAAC semifinals. Number one–seed Monmouth and two-seed Siena await the winners of Canisius vs. Fairfield and Niagara vs. Manhattan.