La Crosse, Wis. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse lacrosse team earned a 11-10 overtime victory over North Central College (Ill.) Sunday afternoon at Veterans Memorial Field Sports Complex. The Eagles improve to 3-2 on the season while the Cardinals drop to 2-7.
It is UWL's first overtime game in school history. The game was started with a wind chill of 14 degrees.
Hannah Gronowski had a pair of goals Sunday.
The Eagles scored the first two goals of the game Sunday in the first-ever meeting between the teams.
Lauren Schwartz scored :22 into the game while
Abigail Steigauf scored at 11:52 to make it 2-0. North Central (Ill.) cut it to 2-1 with 9:09 left, but
Megan Feeney's goal with 8:20 remaining gave UWL a 3-1 lead. Berit Vandenbroucke scored her second goal for the Cardinals to make it 3-2.
Nicole Jernander's goal with 4:47 left gave the Eagles a 4-2 lead after the first quarter.
North Central (Ill.) scored four straight goals to start the second period to take a 6-4 advantage. Tonya Czosek had a pair of goals for the Cardinals.
Hannah Gronowski's goal with 8:40 left with an assist from Hannah Harshman for UWL cut the deficit to 6-5. It started a streak of three consecutive goals for the Eagles as
Kiersten Pelletier scored with 2:27 remaining to tie the game at 6-6 and Gronowski's goal with 1:29 left gave UWL a 7-6 halftime lead.
Vandenbroucke and Reese McMullen scored in the third quarter for North Central (Ill.) to give the Cardinals an 8-7 lead.
The Cardinals scored a pair of goals to start the fourth period with Lucy Culig scoring with 13:57 remaining and Vandenbroucke with 13:16 left to make it 10-7.
Grace Willmott started the UWL rally with a goal with 12:51 remaining to cut the lead to 10-8. Feeney's goal with 3:52 made it 10-9 and Jernander tied the game at 10-10 with a goal with 2:33 left. The Eagles' scored with :24 remaining in overtime as Feeney scored off a Jernander assist.
Kiersten Pelletier had a goal in the second quarter.
UWL totaled 41 shots in the game with Steigauf finishing with a team-high seven. Fenney recorded six shots while Jernander and Gronowski each had five.
Lauren Schwartz finished with seven ground balls.
Feeney had three goals in the game with Jernander and Gronowski each finishing with two.
North Central (Ill.) recorded 28 shots as Vandenbroucke finished with 10. She had five goals in the game. Czosek had two goals. Abigail Widd had a team-high seven ground balls.
Abigale Furlano earned the win, recording seven saves. Widd suffered the loss, registering 19 saves.
UWL returns to action Wednesday, March 30 at the University of Northwestern (Minn.) at 5 p.m.
