QU Women’s Lacrosse Closes 2016 Season With 12-8 Win Over Manhattan on Senior Day

Saturday, April 23

Hamden, CT

1:00 PM

Quinnipiac University

3-13, 1-7MAAC

Manhattan

4-12, 0-7MAAC

Manhattan

Quinnipiac

QU Women’s Lacrosse Closes 2016 Season With 12-8 Win Over Manhattan on Senior Day

4/23/2016 5:04:00 PM | Women's Lacrosse

Box Score

Loren Antonacci and Allison Kuhn Each Pump in Career-High Seven Points in the Bobcat Win

By: QU Sports Information

HAMDEN, Connecticut – It was all smiles at the end of Senior Day on Saturday as the Quinnipiac women's lacrosse team put together their best all-around effort of the season in a season-ending, 12-8, victory over Manhattan from the QU Lacrosse Turf Complex.

The Bobcat victory snapped an extended losing streak as Quinnipiac finishes the 2016 season with an overall mark of 3-13 while also recording their first MAAC win of the season, finishing 1-7 in league play. The Jaspers fell to 4-12 overall and 0-7 in conference play with the loss.

After struggling on the offensive end throughout the 2016 campaign, the Bobcat offense broke out in a big way with a season-high 12 goals in the victory, easily eclipsing their previous season-best of eight.

With the influx in goals, several Bobcats recorded season and career highs highlighted by the seven-point efforts for both Allison Kuhn (Kingsville, Maryland) and Loren Antonacci (Smithtown, New York) as well as a season-high five-point afternoon for senior Kathleen DeVito (Glastonbury, Connecticut).

The freshman Kuhn pumped in five goals, which stands as the most in her young career and the most for a Bobcat in a single-game this season, as well as two assists on her way to a season and career high seven points. Meanwhile, Antonacci nearly doubled her career point total as she dished out a career-high five assists (career high; most for a Bobcat in a single-game in 2016) to go along with two goals for her second career multi-goal game.

The first 30 minutes of play was entirely one-sided as the Bobcats gave the Jaspers all they could handle all throughout the first half. The score was knotted at 1-1 before a 5-0 Quinnipiac run gave the Bobcats a 6-1 advantage with less than 10 minutes to play in the first.

DeVito was all over the scoresheet early as she took a feed from Kuhn and scored the Bobcats' first goal of the game, before she followed with three consecutive assists on goals from senior classmates Aileen Carey (Long Beach, New York) and Shana Maglio (Garden City, New York) as well as Kuhn. Carey went on to tally a pair of goals in her final game as she finished 2016 with the team-lead and single-season career-high 23 goals. Maglio's four years at Quinnipiac were riddled with injury but the senior attack went out on a high note, scoring her second goal of 2016 and seventh goal of her career in the win.

Quinnipiac finished with two more goals in the first half as Antonacci and Kuhn each assisted one another for half-ending goals that gave the Bobcats the 8-3 halftime advantage.

With Manhattan desperate for their first conference win of the season, the Jaspers made a game of it in the second half as the road side struck for five consecutive goals, including the first four of the second stanza, to make it just a one-goal game with 15:25 remaining.

Just as momentum seemed to be cascading away from the Bobcats, Antonacci took over down the stretch as she scored an unassisted tally with 12:43 remaining that broke up the 5-0 Manhattan run. She followed with an unselfish pass to a wide open Kuhn underneath off of a free position attempt that pushed the lead back up to a three-goal cushion.

Again Manhattan threatened to comeback as the Jaspers scored to make it 10-8 with nearly seven minutes remaining but Alex Hlesciak (Lumberton, New Jersey) came up with the ensuring draw control, allowing the senior DeVito to ice the game away with a big insurance free position tally to build the lead back up to three with 4:32 remaining.

Kyle Larkin (Holbrook, New York) notched one of her seven saves (on 15 shots-on-goal) with three minutes remaining and Kuhn tacked on another with 22 seconds remaining that made it 12-8 before the final buzzer sounded.

Starving for goal scoring throughout the entire season, Quinnipiac recorded a season-high 31 shots while scoring 12 goals on a season-high 10 assists for the day. The Bobcats outshot Manhattan, 31-20, while also tallying a 10+ advantage for the game in ground balls (26-16).

On the defensive end, senior Leah Walter (Londonderry, New Hampshire) shined in her final game as she matched her career-high with three caused turnovers to go along with four ground balls as the stalwart defender closes her career with 39 consecutive starts. DeVito also notched a career-high five ground balls and two caused turnovers to go along with her five points.

Senior Sara McCullough (Brewster, Massachusetts) picked up a career-high three draw controls in her final game while Kiera Kelly (West Islip, New York) finished with three ground balls and one caused turnover.

For the season, Kelly finished fifth on the all-time single-season record list at Quinnipiac with 52 ground balls while she also tallied the second-most caused turnovers (37) by a Bobcat in program history. Kelly has a strong chance at finishing with the most ground balls (3.25) and caused turnovers per game (2.31) of any player in the MAAC.

Playing in the final game of their careers, seniors Rachel Massicotte (Wayland, Massachusetts) and Trinity Scanlon (Upton, Massachusetts) each made appearances in the final minute. Massicotte went on to record a save on her only shot faced in her 26 seconds of action.