Lions overtake Seahawks at home

MIDDLETOWN, R.I. – The Salve Regina women's lacrosse team dropped a 11-4 decision to visiting Emerson, Thursday afternoon in the Seahawks home opener.

With the loss, the Seahawks slip to 0-2 on the year while the Lions move to 2-0 on the season.

After a tightly battled first 10 minutes, the Lions broke the 0-0 tie as sophomore Tayllar Righini (Salem, Mass.) notched her second goal on the season on a free position shot with 19:31 to play in the opening half. Righini connected with senior Kanika Misra (Potsdam, N.Y.) for her second of the game before handing out an assist to freshman Meredith Weber (West Caldwell) to give the Lions a 3-0 lead with 14:48 to play.

Sophomore Abigail Tepper (Foxoboro, Mass.)  got the Seahawks on the board as she picked up a loose ball off her saved shot for a put back and her first of the season with 9:59 to play. The Lions answered with a pair of goals from Weber to take a 5-1 lead. With just 11 seconds before half time, senior Grace Kelly (Auburn, N.Y.) took a nice pass in front of the cage from junior Sarah Woods (East Lyme, Conn.) and beat the Lion keeper to cut the EC lead to 5-2 as time expired in the half.

Woods sandwiched a pair of goals to open the second half around a Lion goal from sophomore Kate Lemire (Scituate, Mass.) to pull within two goals, 6-4, but the Lions scored five straight goals to close out the game, including two from Lemire and Weber each while Righini added her third of the game.

Senior Josephine O'Reilly (Middletown, R.I.) made 13 saves in the loss for Salve Regina, including nine in the second half while her Lion counterpart sophomore Victoria Kanaris (Haworth) needed eight saves in the win for Emerson.

The Lions return to action when they travel to St. Joseph's (L.I.) on Saturday at 1 p.m. while the Seahawks host UMass Dartmouth on Saturday at 1 p.m. at Gaudet Field.