Women's Lacrosse Falls Victim to BU Comeback

Last-second heroics by Boston University junior Sydney Godett carried the Terriers past the Harvard women’s lacrosse team, 12-11, on Friday night at Nickerson Field. BU won the contest despite never holding a lead until the very end of the game.

With 11 seconds left, Godett scored on a free position shot off a foul by Crimson (2-5, 0-2 Ivy) defenseman Amelia Capone. The goal was Godett’s second of the game for the Terriers (3-5, 0-1 America East).

Despite jumping out to a quick 6-0 lead within the first five minutes of play, Harvard could not hold off a BU attack that saw five different players score multiple goals. The Terriers were led by senior attack Danielle Etrasco, who had a game-high five points with four goals and one assist.

While the Crimson again used a balanced attack that saw six players score, the defensive unit proved porous against the BU offense even though Harvard edged the Terriers in total shots, 25 to 23, and draw controls, 17 to 8.

A trio of midfielders, junior Kyleigh Keating, senior Danielle Tetreault and captain Micaela Cyr, netted five of the six goals in the Crimson’s early scoring spree.

“We wanted to come out strong,” Cyr said. “We just ran the goal well. We were finishing out shots and it worked well.”

Tetreault led the team in scoring, getting her second hat-trick this season. Keating led the game with six draw controls.

Cyr provided three points, with two goals and one assist, while freshman attack Audrey Todd achieved the same feat. Todd, a rookie who has appeared in all seven contests thus far, has found the back of the net in six games.

“I think people are getting a lot better in terms of moving the ball well,” Cyr said. “That’s translated into multiple people having opportunities to score.”

BU junior attack Elizabeth Morse was the first to put her team on the scoreboard, with a successful free position shot for a goal just over 15 minutes into the first half.

“I think that we came out strong in the beginning of first half,” Tetreault said. “We were controlling tempo of the game and playing the way we wanted to play. I think that we just started letting BU get hope behind them and [let them] take control of the game.”

The Terriers proved effective at capitalizing on Harvard’s fouls, converting four of 10 free-position attempts into goals. A flurry of BU players were able to overwhelm the Crimson defensive unit as senior goalkeeper Melanie Cook wrestled to make eight saves. Cook played the entire game in net for Harvard.

After Tetreault provided the Crimson’s sole free position goal of the contest to bring the score to 7-1, the Terriers went on a 4-1 run over the final six minutes of the opening frame to head into the halftime break down by three, 8-5.

During the run Etrasco scored her first two goals of the game, both unassisted, while senior midfielder Kristen Mogavero also provided a pair of goals. Mogavero’s first came from a handoff by Godett while BU had a man advantage from a yellow card on junior defenseman Lauren Tomkinson. Mogavero’s second was yet another free position goal.

Todd closed out the period with her first goal of the game to break BU’s run, after a foul by Terrier freshman Ally Adams.

While the Crimson was quick to return to the scoreboard, as Cyr drilled her 18th goal of the season just 26 seconds into the second frame, a 3-0 run by BU brought the Terriers within one, 9-8. Todd pulled the Crimson to a two-goal lead with her second unassisted goal, but two more BU scores tied the contest.

Senior midfield Nina Kucharczyk provided the final goal of the game for the Crimson with 7:10 remaining, as her team failed to beat Terrier goalkeeper Christina Sheridan for the rest of the contest.

“Their goalie made some great saves,” Cyr said. “We had a couple of turnovers and that gave them more opportunities on their offensive end.”

BU sophomore attack Kelsey Marafioti grabbed an assist from Etrasco to knot the game again. From there, the stage was set for Godett’s game-winner.

The loss comes after Harvard found its first two wins of the season over spring break.

“I think we had chances the same as they did and the shots weren’t falling our way but we were right there with them,” Tetreault said.

—Staff writer Cordelia F. Mendez can be reached at cordeliamendez@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter at @CrimsonCordelia.