By: Jon Skuza, Sports Reporter
Canisius women’s lacrosse season came to an end after being dominated 21–11 by the Siena Saints (10–2) in the quarterfinals of the MAAC Tournament on Saturday.
Siena’s Kaitlyn Dowsett led the Saints in points with seven, while her teammates Kerry Gerety and Nicole McNeely both contributed six.
Leading in scoring for Canisius (2–8) was Marissa Malvaso and Katie Smolensky who both recorded three points in the game. With the points in the game, Malvaso extended her point streak to 25 games as her career came to a close.
Canisius opened the scoring early with a goal by Katie Smolensky. After that, Siena dominated as they scored four straight goals in a span of almost three minutes to make it 4–1. Marissa Malvaso would add her first of three goals on the day to make it 4–2. Siena would add another goal before Skylar McArthur would score a man-up goal to make it 5–3. Siena would net two more goals before Miranda Malvaso would score her first goal of the game to make it 7–4. Siena would then score five straight goals on Canisius to make it 12–4.
Senior goaltender Lauren Gilbert was pulled from the net after giving up 10 goals in 17:20. Junior Shannon Maroney played for the remainder of the game.
Marissa Malvaso stopped the run of Siena goals by scoring to make it 12–5. Siena would add two goals before Riley Davis scored her only goal of the game to make it 14–6. Before the half was over, Siena would finish off its dominant run with two more goals to take a 16–6 lead.
The second half was better from Canisius but the damage had already been done. Siena started the scoring in the second half with two goals. Canisius then went on a run and scored five straight goals to make it an 18–11 game. Two of the goals were scored by Smolensky, while the other three goals were scored by Marissa and Miranda Malvaso and Skylar McArthur.
"It was a tale of two halves today,” head coach Allison Daley told GoGriffs.com. “We competed and played like the team we are in the second half. I'm proud of our players for continuing to fight to the end. Congratulations to Siena on advancing. They are a well-coached and talented team."