GARDEN CITY, N.Y. – For the fourth time this season, the No. 1 Pace University women's lacrosse team faced a test against a top-five team in all the land, and for the first time on the road. Facing off with No. 3 Adelphi University at Motamed Field Wednesday evening, the Setters overcame a slow start to take down Adelphi for a second straight year, 12-11.
With the win, Pace improves to 11-0 overall and 5-0 in Northeast 10 play, with seven of those wins coming against nationally ranked teams. Pace will stay on the road for its next contest, heading up to Colchester, Vt. for a meeting with Saint Michael's College on Friday, April 12 at 6 p.m.
The aforementioned slow start took the whole first quarter, with Adelphi getting a pair of shots past Samatha Tanguay to start the game. A free position goal from
Angelina Porcello stopped the momentum temporarily with 5:50 left in the first, but another pair of Panther goals in the final two minutes to take a 4-1 advantage into the second quarter.
With the momentum against them, the Pace offense got to work using a second free position goal coming off the stick of
Mackenzie Carita to light a spark. Porcello worked her way through traffic on the ensuing possession and beat the Panthers goalie to cut the lead to one, 4-3, with just over 11 minutes remaining in the half.
A couple of minutes later,
Maddie Schubert used a pass from
Sydney Juvelier to find an opening and fire a shot into the back of the cage to tie the affair up at four apiece. Adelphi swiftly reclaimed the lead and looked poised to take a slim 5-4 lead into halftime, but Juvelier had different plans, taking a pass from
Nikki Mottes to tie the game up at 5-5 with just under a minute left in the opening half.
After conceding the first goal of the second half to the home team, Pace took charge the rest of the way in the third quarter. The hero of the Setter's last contest,
Margaret Flocco, ripped a shot off a perfect setup from Mottes to return the game to a tie, 6-6. After winning the ensuing draw control, Schubert swung the lead back to the Blue and Gold thanks to converting another free position shot. Flocco and Juvelier each added one more goal as the quarter drew to a close to give Pace a 9-6 advantage heading into the final 15 minutes.
Adelphi had one final scoring salvo left and played their hand in the final quarter. The home team managed three unanswered goals to return the game to a deadlocked score, this time at 9-9. Those three unanswered goals would be answered by Pace with three of their own. Flocco once again connected with Mottes to regain the lead, this time for good.
After that, another Juvelier goal was followed by Schubert as she buried a free position shot to bump the lead back up to three, 12-9, with just under nine minutes remaining. Adelphi fired off two goals in the final three minutes and looked poised to tie the game but committed a costly turnover and after Pace completed the ensuing clear, the game was sealed in favor of the Setters.
Three Setters departed Garden City with hat tricks. Flocco's hat trick marked her first since April of 2022 while Juvelier and Schubert also notched three goals of their own.
Alexandra Quinn turned in another stout defense performance, causing four Panther turnovers. Tanguay finished the evening with 10 saves, her third double-digit save performance of the 2024 campaign.
