Staten Island, NY – The Wagner field hockey team defeated Lehigh 4-3 in overtime on senior day Sunday afternoon for their fourth consecutive victory to conclude their regular season.
Both teams tallied two shots in the opening quarter. The visitors forced senior goalkeeper
Daisy Ruhle to make two saves in the frame to keep the game scoreless. Despite not having a shot on target, the Green & White forced two penalty corners and held Lehigh without a corner in the opening quarter.
The Mountain Hawks opened the scoring in the second quarter when graduate student Drew Pecora found the back of the net one minute into the second stanza. Lehigh outshot Wagner 3-1 in the quarter, Ruhle stopped one shot in that frame along with her counterpart in between the pipes Maddie Kahn.
The visitors outshot Wagner 5-3 in the first half and had four shots on target while the Seahawks had one. Ruhle tallied three saves in the first half while Kahn stopped one shot. The Green & White forced four penalty corners and held the visitors to just one.
Lehigh doubled their lead early in the third quarter when Sarah Bonthuis finished a rebound off of a penalty corner that was inserted by Bonthuis. The Seahawks responded 35 seconds later when junior
Kira Mordvinov found sophomore
Natalie Rocuskie who fired her shot into the yawning cage. For Rocuskie, it was her third consecutive game with a goal and her fifth goal in the last three games.
The Mountain Hawks found the back of the net nine minutes later after Bontuhis tallied her second goal of the quarter. The visitors outshot the hosts 6-2 in the quarter while Ruhle stopped three shots to keep the Seahawks within two goals heading to the fourth quarter.
Senior
Julia Cruces Pastorino brought the Seahawks to within one goal off of a penalty stroke with 12 minutes remaining in the contest. For Pastorino, it was her team-leading 13th goal of the season. The Seahawks knotted the score with 3:20 remaining when sophomore
Emma Brushingham inserted a corner and found senior Laura Van Hamburg who fired a shot that was deflected by Pastorino into the back of the net.
The contest was on its way to being the third overtime affair of the season for the Seahawks. The Green & White had won the previous two overtime games of the season. After regulation, the Seahawks tallied eight shots while the Mountain Hawks accumulated 13 shots.
The Seahawks claimed their ninth victory of the season when
Julia Cruces Pastorino made a long run with the ball and fired a pass to Laura Van Hamburg who launched a shot past Maddie Kahn. For Van Hamburg, it was her third goal of the season. The Noordwijk, Netherlands native scored the first and last goals of the regular season for Wagner.
For Pastorino, her two goals today gave her five in the last two games and a combinted 11 points in the last two games of the regular season. Pastorino led the Green & White with four shots while senior
Agustina Deharbe had two shots for Wagner. Ruhle stopped seven saves in her ninth victory of the season.
The Seahawks ended the season on a four-game win streak and finish the regular season with a 9-9 overall record after beginning the campaign with an 0-5 record.
Wagner will be back in action on Friday, November 5 when they battle LIU in the Northeast Conference (NEC) semifinals at 2:00 P.M. at the Wagner Field Hockey Complex.
