Back to Back Champs! Owls Outlast Panthers For LEC Title

Recap, photo courtesy of Keene State College

KEENE, N.H.— Freshman midfielder Samantha Ballard scored five goals en route to Most Outstanding Player honors as the Keene State College women's lacrosse team won their second straight Little East Conference tournament championship with an 11-8 win over Plymouth State University on Saturday afternoon.

Records

• Keene State: 11-7
• Plymouth State: 11-7

Up Next

• The Owls will find out who and where they will be playing when the NCAA selections are announced on Sunday night.   It's the fifth overall NCAA appearance for Keene State, who also won the LEC tournament in 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2015.

Tale of the Tape

• Junior Taylor Graf had three assists, breaking the single season record for helpers set by Lauren Murphy in 2010.  Graf now has 63 this season.
• Kaitlin Nolan had three goals and two assists, and Taylor Farland had a pair of goals.  Alison Argiro had eight saves in the KSC net. 
• Plymouth State was led by three goals from Sam Sullivan and two each from Caroline Vonachen and Megan Tingley.  Meg Brault had six stops for the Panthers, who were seeking their first tournament title since 2014. 
• It was the third straight year that Keene State and Plymouth State had met in the LEC Championship game, but the first time the home team had won in that stretch.  Plymouth State had won in Keene in 2014, while the Owls triumphed on the road last year

First Half Highlights

• The two teams traded goals through the first six markers of the game.  Vonachen scored 56 seconds into the contest, but Nolan answered at the 21:17 mark.  Sullivan and Ballard swapped goals, and after Vonachen scored again, Farland found the net unassisted  with 17:22 left for a 3-3 tie.
• Sullivan scored for a 4-3 Panther lead, but the Owls closed out the half with the final three goals.
• Graf got the record breaking assist when she set up Nolan to knot the score at four, and Ballard put the Owls in front for good with an unassisted goal with 6:36 left.
• Nolan then added a man-down goal with 4:23 left in the first half as KSC went into the break up 6-4.

Second Half Highlights

• Ballard and Tingley scored 57 seconds apart for the opening goals of the second half, and Ballard scored again off a feed from Graf with 20:06 to play. 
• Sophia Guerrero's unassisted goal pulled the Panthers within 8-7 with 16:44 left.  The Owls rattled off the next three to put some distance between the teams.
• Plymouth State got one back on Meagan Tingley's free position effort with 1:49 left, but could not find any more goals as the Owls took the win.